57 pages • 1 hour read
Lois DuncanI Know What You Did Last Summer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
On the day after meeting with Julie and Barry, Helen sunbathes by the pool and thinks about her sister, Elsa, who works at Wards Department store and looks down on Helen’s job at the television station. Helen recalls how her physical appearance got her the job and what she went through to look like she does—dieting, hair dying, and makeup. She contrasts her carefully constructed looks with her mother’s haggard appearance—the result of “housework and budget-stretching and childbearing” (35). Helen is not exceptionally smart, so she was excited to leave school for the Future Star job.
Helen thinks about Barry and feels lucky that he, a popular football player, decided to date her. She regrets calling him about the note because Barry doesn’t like to be pressured. She remembers how early in their two-year relationship, his mother warned her not to chase Barry. A new neighbor joins Helen poolside, asking if he can sit beside her. After noting that she has a boyfriend, she agrees, and he introduces himself as Collingsworth Wilson, a veteran. She asks if she can call him Collie. Collie asks about her boyfriend, admitting to being interested in her and seeing Barry as competition. Helen says only nice things about Barry and worries about getting a sunburn because of her job on television. Collie seems impressed, and Helen leaves the pool.
As she walks back to her apartment, she thinks about how the school teachers in the building will fight over dating Collie, but she finds Barry more attractive. Helen worries about a peeling sunburn, thinking about how to make excuses for it on camera. On the door of her apartment is a picture of a boy on a bicycle cut out from a magazine ad, which shocks her.
Chapter 5 Summary
Ray receives an envelope with a newspaper clipping he recognizes. The clipping describes a boy named Daniel Gregg, the victim of a hit-and-run accident who died on the way to the hospital and notes that an unidentified occupant of the car called the authorities. Daniel was riding his bicycle on Mountain Road, and all that was known about the car was its color—light blue.
Ray notes that the handwriting on the envelope is the same as in the letter Julie received. He knows both letters are not pranks. He knew the events of that night would catch up to them; that’s why he left home a year ago, and why he has returned home now.
Before the accident, Ray had a good but somewhat tenuous relationship with his father, Herb Bronson. Herb was a football star with a short professional career. After being injured, he became a successful sporting goods store owner. Conversely, Ray was skinny and studious, and his father teased him about their differences. Ray’s ability to befriend football players like Barry and date a cheerleader (Julie) impressed his father, but he always felt like a shadow of Barry and Herb. Ray recalls dating Julie and feeling she was too good for him. Even though she once told him she loved him, the accident drove them apart.
Ray recalls the July night when they drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. Despite it being Ray’s car, Barry and Ray flipped a coin to see who’d drive. Ray won the backseat, which allowed him to make out with Julie. While they were kissing, he heard Helen scream and turned just in time to see a child riding a bicycle on the road. Barry runs over the child and keeps driving. Ray demands that they go back, but Barry refuses and suggests calling an ambulance when they reach town. Ray insists they call now, but Barry convinces him to wait until they are on the freeway. Ray calls 911, though Barry demands he end the call before telling the operator his identity. Ray does so but asks if they will return to the scene. Barry still refuses, even though Julie and Helen also insist they should go back.
Barry justifies not returning by saying he is the only one who is 18 and will be tried as an adult. Ray says he will share the responsibility because it is his car. Barry and Helen suggest that Ray tell the police he was driving. Julie rejects this, and Helen argues that Barry would get a jail sentence while Ray would not. Ray admits that Barry would receive a worse punishment than he would. Julie objects, mentioning that Barry was driving too fast.
Helen suggests they take a vote about returning, and Barry agrees, saying they will flip a coin if the votes are tied. Helen and Barry both vote not to return. Julie votes to return and says she won’t let a tie be decided by a coin flip. Ray mentions that Barry is his best friend and votes not to return. They hear sirens approaching, and Barry swears everyone to secrecy.
The morning after the accident, Ray sees the newspaper article about Daniel Gregg and tries to call Julie, but her mother says she is ill. That evening over the phone, Julie tells Ray she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. Ray cries.
Looking at the clipping, Ray notes how it is old, yellowing, and creased, which implies that it was frequently reread and stored in a small place, like a wallet. Ray wonders how much the person who sent the article knows about the accident and thinks, “What is he going to do next?” (53).
Chapter 6 Summary
On Memorial Day, Barry eats dinner at his parents’ house and discusses his summer plans. Mrs. Cox wants to take a trip with him to the East Coast, while Barry wants to travel around Europe with his friends. Mr. Cox thinks the trip will be expensive, complaining even though he has a well-paying job as an electrical engineer. Barry explains that they will stay in hostels and can get cheap plane tickets. Mrs. Cox reveals that she was planning to fund a European trip for Barry, with expensive hotels and meals, when he graduated from college. She says he should spend time with his family after living in the frat house for a year.
When he returns to the frat house, Barry’s roommate—Lou Wheeler—tells him Helen has been calling. Barry also mentions the traffic around campus because of the fireworks display. Lou mentions that the students are protesting the fireworks because they believe that observing Memorial Day is pro-war. Lou and the other guys tease Barry about Helen, asking for her number if he isn’t going to call her.
Barry never intended for his relationship with Helen to be serious or long-term. Initially, he was only interested in Helen because of her looks, and he only declared that they were in a relationship because it upset his mother. He had planned to dump her but changed his mind after she defended him after the accident. Then, after Helen got the Future Star job, he liked being with someone with a little local fame. Despite these positives, Barry felt Helen was too insecure and too mothering. Barry envied Ray’s ability to travel around California by working odd jobs but was unwilling to give up his parents’ money to pursue a similar path. He decides to break up with Helen as soon as possible.
The frat’s house phone rings, and the call is for Barry, who assumes it is Helen and decides to break up with her on the call. He answers the phone, but the other side of the conversation is not included. After Barry hangs up, he walks outside toward the stadium and the fireworks display. On the field, someone shines a flashlight in his face and shoots him with a gun, with the noise from the fireworks covering the sound of the gunshot.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
While the first three chapters hint at the details of the accident, the event remains shrouded in mystery. This section reveals the events of that night, presents Helen, Ray, and Barry in greater detail, and fleshes out the relationships within the group. Even so, the narrative follows Julie most closely, offering greater insight into her character, an emphasis that develops the theme of Gender Roles. Julie’s point of view lacks the sexism inherent in Barry’s point of view, such as Barry referring to Helen as a “nice showpiece” (57) for him. Furthermore, Ray’s first chapter includes how he sided with Barry during the accident, explaining, “He’s my best friend, Julie” (51), and voted against her to keep the accident a secret.
In Ray’s first point-of-view chapter, the reader learns what the teens did last summer. The accident details come from Ray’s perspective, such as “Helen had screamed” and “they had seen the child from the back [of the car]” (47). These details develop the theme of The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. Ray’s point of view is contrasted with the newspaper clipping he receives, which is merely a factual account of the accident “on page two next to the obituaries” (52). However, this factual and detached information about the accident makes Ray feel guilty. As will be revealed later, the antagonist, Bud/Collie, wants to punish Ray more than he wants to kill him. This sadistic desire to inflict emotional pain possibly comes from the trauma of the war that Bud/Collie experienced and the pain of losing his half-brother.
One important clue in this section about the antagonist’s dual identity is that both iterations of his character are introduced as a veteran. When Bud meets Ray, Ray says, “I hear you just got back from Iraq” (31). When Helen meets the same man but uses a different nickname—Collie—he says he is “just out of the service” (38). Late in the novel, Bud/Collie explains how he has trauma related to using guns in the war and from being hospitalized for battle-related injuries. His trauma is how he justifies seeking revenge against the teens who killed his younger half-brother last summer. By the end of this section, Bud/Collie has a connection to each of the four teens: As Bud, he is dating Julie and has met Ray, and as Collie, he has approached Helen and flirted with her. Although not yet revealed to the reader, he meets Barry on the field when he shoots him, and he presumably followed him home in Chapter 2. The different points of view and nicknames used in the novel keep the antagonist’s identity a mystery to the reader, showing how Duncan uses the limitations of the limited third-person point of view to build suspense.
The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter show up in the three point-of-view chapters in this section. Helen is upset when she finds a “picture cut from a magazine ad” (40) of a boy on a bicycle taped to her apartment door. The piece of print media causes her to stop and stare at the ad as she is confronted with a reminder of the accident. No further reaction is noted before the chapter ends. In Helen’s point-of-view chapter, there is no mention of the accident, which contrasts with the other characters. The omission is a hint that Helen copes through denial. She denies the accident just like she denies that Barry is cheating on her. By contrast, Ray’s point-of-view chapter is dominated by the accident, providing the most details about it thus far. Unlike Helen, Ray often thinks about what happened and expects the truth to come out eventually. When he gets the newspaper clipping, he thinks, “So it’s caught up with us [...] finally. His own lack of surprise was the thing that surprised him” (42). Ray feels responsible for the accident and believes, on some level, that they deserve punishment for their actions. Meanwhile, in his chapter, self-centered Barry only mentions the accident as a complicating factor that kept him from breaking up with Helen because she stood by him in the decision to keep it a secret. If Barry suffers from guilt, he hides it from his friends and the reader.
This section also develops the theme of Family and Identity Formation. Helen largely creates her identity in opposition to her mother and her sister, Elsa. Helen works hard to be conventionally attractive (thin and blonde), which leads to her getting a fun job at a TV station. On the other hand, Elsa “was a great believer that the only kind of work that counted was the kind that made your back ache and sent you home exhausted” (34). Elsa appears to be similar to their mother, who is tired from housework, childbearing, and making do with less. Helen wants a life different from the lower-class home she was raised in, but rather than advancing through education, she relies on her looks to get ahead. Helen’s identity is tied to her appearance because it gets her what she wants: income, her own apartment, the boyfriend of her choosing, and fame. It’s no surprise that Barry, who planned to break up with her, continues to date her because it raises his profile to be seen with a beautiful local celebrity.
Meanwhile, Barry tries to rebel against his controlling mother even though he still wants his parents’ money. When he asks to go to Europe with his friends, staying in cheap hostels, her mother says, “I had Europe in mind for you as a special trip where we would stay in nice hotels and eat at famous restaurants” (55). This demonstrates how the benefit of one’s class can shape one’s identity. Helen’s parents couldn’t offer her money to travel or go to college, so she did not use familial wealth to form her identity. Rather, she used their lack of resources to decide who she wanted to become. On the other hand, Barry’s parents control where he attends college and how he travels. He thinks, “If you wanted your parents to pay the bills, you lived the way they wanted you to” (60). Unlike Helen, Barry surrenders his will to his parents’ wealth, but doing so makes him resentful and frustrated.
Ray’s chapter reveals that he, too, is influenced by his father’s expectations and comparisons. His father wishes his studious son were an athlete as he had been before an injury sidelined him. Slight in build, Ray was teased by his father over his size, but Ray still felt genuine affection from him. Even so, his father is proud that Ray is friends with an athlete like Barry and a cheerleader like Julie. These pressures, whether coupled with humor or love, still play a role in identity formation, and looking back, Ray feels, “I was kind of a shadow, partly Dad, partly Barry, not making it either way and not knowing how else I could make it” (45). Such feelings of not fitting in and the stress of the accident likely led to Ray leaving and living on his own for a year.
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