This One Summer

Content Warning: The Symbols & Motifs mention miscarriage and suicide.

Awago Beach is the setting of This One Summer and serves as a multi-layered symbol of both positive and negative memories in the lives of Rose, Windy, and their families. It is the place where Rose and Windy met and have spent all of their time together, and it becomes sacred to them for this reason. Rose recalls several memories of spending time on the beach with her family, and these memories are all happy, innocent, and from a time when her family was more unified and loving. In Rose’s last summer of childhood, the beach evolves into a symbol of The Emergence of Adolescence and Accompanying Loss of Innocence. Rose also uses the lake as a source of catharsis, often swimming alone and spending the time contemplating and reflecting.

Rose and Windy spend much of their summer days at the lake, swimming for hours. In one scene of childlike whimsy, Windy runs toward the beach, a speck amongst the wide waves and sand, yelling “AH! The sand is like lava!” (81). She and Rose often swim far out into the lake and use the privacy to discuss matters that bother them. In one such instance, Rose complains about Jenny and judges her for being pregnant. Windy quietly accuses Rose of being sexist, which upsets Rose but ultimately leads her to reflect. Although the girls often argue, Awago Beach always brings them together.

In the present, Rose feels distant from her mother, who is in the throes of grief after a miscarriage the summer before. Alice pays little attention to Rose other than to scold her, refuses to go swimming, and fights with her husband in front of Rose. Rose thinks back to a time when her mother was more emotionally present and happier, when she and her family first came to Awago Beach. A two-page splash shows a view of the sun from underwater as Alice coaxes a nervous Rose to try swimming in the lake for the first time—a joyous memory. Similarly, Rose recalls disliking the idea of visiting Awago Beach in the winter, as she doesn’t want to destroy her image of years of perfect summers; Rose reconciling the beach of then and the beach of now reflects her juggling between childhood and adolescence.

Immediately following Rose’s memory of learning to swim, a foreboding image of her pretending to be dead in the water foreshadows the night of the bonfire. The beach is a reminder of a negative experience for Alice, one that seems to have overruled all of her happy memories there. In the novel’s conclusion, Alice reveals that she experienced a miscarriage in the lake the summer before. Similarly, Jenny attempts to end her life by drowning in the lake. Alice and Jenny’s stories of being victims of The Socially Prescribed Obligations of Womanhood collide in this moment, as Alice rushes in to save Jenny’s life. This is the first time Alice has entered the water all summer, and it is a cathartic experience that helps her confront her trauma. Therefore, the beach also symbolizes The Permeative Effects of Mental Illness—and how Alice begins to overcome them by saving someone else.