65 pages • 2 hours read
Edith WhartonSummer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1917A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Charity and Harney rent a boat and go rowing on the lake. She reflects upon the $10-fee that he paid the cab to transport them there, noting that an engagement ring might have cost less but realizing that “they were friends and comrades, but no more” (74). Harney explains that the Nettleton fireworks will be far more impressive than those of North Dormer.
A raucous group approaches, and Charity hears the familiar voice of the disgraced Julia Hawes exclaiming, “‘Say! If this ain’t like Old Home Week’” when she notices Charity. Julia strikes Charity as having “lost her freshness” (75), and Charity worries that Harney will realize that the somewhat unsavory crowd knows her. She is enthralled by the fireworks, as well as the fact that Harney kisses her with great enthusiasm afterward. After the pair race to the trolley and miss it, they decide to take a boat back up to the lake. Julia Hawes appears again, loudly telling Charity, “‘Here’s gran’pa’s little treasure come to take him home’” (77). Lawyer Royall, clearly drunk, sees Charity holding Harney’s arm and calls her a “bare-headed whore” (78). The rest of his party dissolves in laughter, and Charity, humiliated, approaches Royall and tells him to “[…] come right home with me” (78). Royall holds on to Julia’s shoulder and departs on the boat as Charity sobs and clutches Harney.
Chapter 11 Summary
Charity returns to her home in North Dormer at 2:00 a.m. when she is transported by a young boy Harney hires. She is miserable, overwhelmed, and unable to fully comprehend the events that transpired when she met up with the drunken Lawyer Royall; however, “[…] the secretive instinct of the animal in pain was so strong in her that she had a sense of relief when Harney got out and she drove on alone” (80). She refuses dinner offered by the elderly cook, Verena, at 1:00 p.m. the following day. Subsequently, she is roused from her torpid state by the sight of the approaching Ally Hawes, whose sister, Julia, mocked Charity the previous day. Charity is sure that Ally maintains furtive contact with Julia and that the story of her humiliation in Nettleton will be spread around the community. At that moment, she decides that “[…] flight, and instant flight, was the only thing conceivable” (81).
Filled with loathing at the prospect of seeing Royall again, Charity packs a few possessions and begins a long hike back to the Mountain, to her “own folks” (82). She is devoid of any independent means of support and has come to view any future relationship with Harney as impossible.
She drops the packet of letters that Harney wrote to her on the ground during a brief exchange with a minister near a Revival tent. Harney, who is searching for her on his bicycle, recognizes the letters in the man’s hands and is able to find Charity as a result. She advises him that she wants to be left alone, but he persuades her to talk to him. They head for the abandoned house where Charity had planned to spend the night; she advises Harney that Royall once made sexual advances toward her. Harney is infuriated by this information. The pair kiss passionately as the chapter closes.
Chapter 12 Summary
Charity joins other young women of North Dormer at Miss Hatchard’s residence, where they prepare decorative banners for Old Home Week. Harney, who has been absent from the area for several weeks, has returned to reside with his cousin, Miss Hatchard, and is assisting with the preparations. Charity has acquiesced return to the town, a directive Harney gave her, and it is clear that she is highly infatuated with Harney.
The narrative further indicates that Charity and Harney have been having a love affair and meeting secretly at the deserted house near the Mountain in the afternoons. Clearly besotted, Charity experiences a change, as “[…] had always thought of love as something confused and furtive, and he made it as bright and open as the summer air” (93). Conversely, while she has returned to live in Royall’s house, she refuses all conversation and interactions with the older man.
In preparation for a town dance the following evening, Charity spent all her money on a white silk dress made by Ally Hawes. She develops a strong suspicion that a matching pair of satin slippers given to her by Ally have previously been owned by her competitor, Annabel Balch.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
Charity, who is possessed of a pragmatic shrewdness, if not an extensive formal education, is innately aware that the possibility of a long-term relationship between Harney and herself is unrealistic. She is aware of disparities between them on a number of levels. Specifically, during their cab ride to the lake on their festive day in Nettleton, Charity calculates that the same $10 invested in the fare by Harney “[…] might have bought her an engagement ring” (73). She vacillates between chiding herself about such fantasies and, after the start of their sexual relationship, coming to believe that they will marry.
For his part, Harney adapts an attitude toward the young woman that includes the characteristics of a romantic partner combined with those of a stern husband or father when he instructs her to return to North Dormer. He woos her with train trips and meals at a French restaurant, and initiates her first sexual experience. Charity, well aware of the social perception of the unmarried Julia Hawes, known to have undergone an abortion after she had a love affair, initially feels that she will never acquiesce to such a relationship. Ultimately, her infatuation with Harney overcomes her innate sense of self-preservation, and she anticipates their afternoon meetings in an abandoned house with great enthusiasm.
The wide chasm between the social classes that produced Charity and Harney become more apparent as the novel progresses. The fairy-tale day in Nettleton ends disastrously when the loud, crass Julia Hawes, accompanied by a raucous group that includes a drunken Mr. Royall, shouts out that Charity has come to bring grandpa home. This event, paired with Harney’s previous awareness of Charity’s origins on the Mountain, serves to highlight their class differences. The following day, when Charity impulsively flees her home out of fear that Julia Hawes has provided the town with a cruel description of the events of the previous evening, she appears to be fleeing her Mountain origins as well as the entrapment of her social situation within the Royall household.
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