Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen

Ringgold’s local Dairy Queen is a primary narrative setting, which is central to the novel’s title and thematic structure. It functions as a key symbol representing a secular sanctuary where personal salvation can be sought and defined outside of religious doctrine. Throughout Catherine Grace Cline’s coming of age, the sticky Dairy Queen picnic table is where she and her sister Martha Ann Cline take refuge from the oppressive expectations of their limiting hometown community. It is a space of freedom and possibility where Catherine Grace can look out at the mountain in the distance and dream of a world beyond her small town. The setting is such a fixture in her childhood that she can’t “remember a time when going to the Dairy Queen wasn’t part of my weekly routine” (53). Initially, salvation for Catherine Grace is synonymous with her physical escape from Ringgold to the proverbial “Promised Land” of Atlanta. The Dairy Queen serves as the sacred site for planning this personal exodus, and represents a hope that exists separately from the church and her father’s rigid faith.

The symbol’s meaning evolves alongside Catherine Grace’s understanding of salvation. It is both a launchpad for her escape and the location of her ultimate