56 pages • 1-hour read
Summer Sisters
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Symbols & Motifs
The Vineyard
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of child abuse, sexual abuse, grooming, and suicidal ideation.
The Vineyard symbolizes a magical and magnetic place. About Vix, the narrator says, “With summer, the problems of the world, her world anyway, magically lifted from her shoulders” (90). On the island, Vix transforms. The financial and familial difficulties of her New Mexico life vanish, and she rejoins Caitlin’s family and becomes Caitlin’s “summer sister.” The magic also applies to Caitlin, who becomes a different person when she isn’t there: “I have another life at Mountain Day, a life apart from the two of us” (113). Detached from the island, Caitlin becomes someone else.
The magic never leaves Vix and Caitlin entirely. Their bond transcends the island, and they are still in contact when they’re not on the island. Still, the Vineyard cements their relationship—it’s the source of their bond. The island also represents safety, perhaps due to its relative isolation and small population. Despite Abby fretting about their unsupervised exploits, they don’t experience any significant trouble and are free to experiment.
As the island brings Vix and Caitlin together, it symbolizes a magnetic place. Vix and Caitlin leave it, but they inevitably return. Their relationship starts on the island, and Caitlin brings Vix and the other characters back to the island by marrying Bru there. As Vix and Gus want to live on the Vineyard, they highlight its allure. Through Patti, Von’s wife, Blume shows how the island can negatively magnetize people, however: The Vineyard doesn’t attract Patti as much as it traps her. Patti claims, “Everybody goes crazy on this island” (351).
Friends
At first, friends symbolize performance or an audience, with Caitlin using Vix to build a mythological, theatrical identity. During their first summer together, she asks Vix, “Did I ever tell you that in my former life I was a mermaid?” (30). Most of the dialogue between Vix and Caitlin favors Caitlin, turning Caitlin into the performer and Vix into her audience.
When Nathan dies, friendship evolves to symbolize support. Caitlin flies back to New Mexico with Vix. She holds her hand during the funeral and helps clean up after the mourners leave their house. These aren’t markedly glamorous activities, and Caitlin’s participation demonstrates her substantive bond with Vix. The narrator states, “If a friend is someone you can depend on when life gets tough, then Caitlin was her friend” (191-92).
Conversely, Vix doesn’t feel like she can be Caitlin’s friend or that Caitlin will let her be her friend. Vix says, “I have regrets about you […] that you couldn’t come to me when you were struggling […] when you were in pain” (393). Caitlin replies by calling herself a “self-centered bitch who doesn’t give a flying fuck about anybody but herself” (393). Caitlin’s relationship with Vix undercuts her negative portrayal.
Friendship continues to symbolize support with Maia and Paisley. When Vix discovers that Caitlin is marrying Bru, they discuss her feelings with her and try to help her make a smart choice. Maia and Paisley have a different view of Caitlin, but friendship doesn’t mean automatically agreeing. They demonstrate that friends can disagree and still support one another.
Money
The motif of money supports each of the three major themes. The Fluidity of Families depends on money: Families can come together or break apart due to money. Vix’s parents arguably break up partly due to the strain of money. Wealthy parents, like Phoebe and Lamb, also divorce. Money allows Caitlin’s family to take care of Vix for the summer and to give her opportunities she wouldn’t otherwise have, culminating in an Ivy League education.
Innocence Versus Experience also links to money, as financial privilege gives Caitlin and Vix a relatively safe space to enact their sexual desires and gain experience. Though bad things happen on the island, nothing irrevocable happens to Vix and Caitlin. Money also gives the “summer sisters” experiences separate from sex. Money allows Caitlin to travel the world, and the money from the foundation lets Vix experience Harvard, which opens an array of other doors.
However, one’s financial status has less bearing on The Elusive Power of Sex. Whether the characters are affluent or from a lower socioeconomic class, sex consumes them. The working-class Trisha thinks about sex as much as the jet-setting Phoebe. However, the Countess, the predatory TV star, and the references to Woody Allen and Ted Kennedy suggest that money can make powerful, affluent, or famous people more susceptible to harmful sexual norms.
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