Literary Essay - "And Summer Is Gone" by Susie Kretschmer

David: 

• Studious
• Curious
• Imaginative
• Creative
• Passionate
• Artistic
• Insightful
• Intuitive
• Introvert
• Secure
• Academic
• Mature

Amy:

• Friendly
• Forward
• Adventurous
• Insecure
• Extrovert
• Social
• Under-achiever
• False
• Untrue
• Confident
• Judgemental
• Shallow

Quotes: 

David:

• "I was an artist." (2)
• "I lived in the worlds that I drew." (4)
• "I spent more time on my art, alone." (3)
• "I met her blue eyes with a level calm stare." (4)

Amy:

• "Tall as I was and unafraid to claim every inch of it." (2)
• "But she hardly spoke to me at school, ever." (3)
• "She complained she was fat and affected to eat little." (3)

Amy is social in order to be accepted by her peers at school. She is insecure about her appearance and what people will think of her. This is why she does not talk to David at school. She wants to be something she is not. As a kid, Amy was adventurous and outgoing. She was lanky and awkward, she played in the mud and played dress up and pretend. As she reached high school, she changed. Her personality changed with her body and she became self-conscious. She wanted to be perfect, she wanted to fit in. She changed who she was to please other people and to please her thirst for popularity.

Growing older provides an opportunity for personal change and growth, not only physically but psychologically as well. The short story “And Summer Is Gone” by Susie Kretschmer describes the changing attitude of a young girl as she experiences the pressures of high school. The story, told from the point of view of the girl’s close friend, expresses how her urgency to find a comfortable niche in the high school experience has put a strain on their once innocent friendship. While Amy is insecure and ultimately shallow, her friend, David, is intuitive and secure about his identity.

                Amy first appears to be a confident young girl. As a gawky thirteen year old, she is forward and friendly. She is tall and “unafraid to claim every inch of it” and her adventurous attitude is appealing to David the day they first meet (2). As Amy grows up she is molded by the kinds of influences a stereotypical high school experience has to offer. She ceases to find David interesting, only speaking to him during the summers and never at school. It is easy to assume that Amy is embarrassed by David’s artistic and academic interests, as they now contradict her own. Her extrovert personality seems to mask her discomfort with her image and she is social in order to be accepted by her peers at school. This image change affects how Amy acts around David as well. She stops eating around him, “complain[ing] she was fat and affect[ing] to eat little” (3). By the closing of the story it is evident that Amy changes who she is to please other people.

    

The story is told from David’s point of view, from the day he meets Amy until the day he knows he’s lost her. He is a very secure person, not one’s typical definition of confident, but he knows who he is. David is a bright, creative, studious person. He finds simplicity mesmerizing and is significantly observant. His intellect and introvert personality allows him to quietly view the world around him and gather information about people and things. David prefers to work on his art alone and he “lived in the worlds that [he] drew” (4). He is comfortable with himself and is quite proud of his own personal accomplishments. David finds security in understanding that “it was [him] who had grown up and [Amy] who had gotten lost” (4). This level of maturity is, in this context, unusual for a boy of David’s age and impressive all the same.

Both friends evolve in different ways, growing apart in their experiences.  These differences in personality and interest allow both Amy and David to find what it is they are looking to find when it comes to school, relationships, and friendships. As Amy feels she has grown up and it is David who is still immature, it is David who finds maturity while still holding on to the integrity of his childhood.