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.
Themes
The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter
The teens and the novel’s antagonist are affected in various ways by guilt. After the teens kill the little boy in a car accident, their ideas about home change. Ray leaves the small town in New Mexico and travels around doing odd jobs—Julie notes that the “last card I had from Ray was sent from California” (17). Julie shares his impulse to leave their hometown and works hard in school to get into Smith College. After getting her acceptance letter from the women’s college, Julie thinks, “You’ll be out—free! (5). Ray and Julie associate the trauma of the hit-and-run with a particular geographical location, and their guilt drives them away from this location.
However, as the novel begins, Ray returns to their hometown. This is around the time that the antagonist starts to send threatening mail, and Ray thinks, “It was as though he had known all along, somewhere deep within himself, that this was going to happen. It was why he had come home, and a year ago it was why he had gone away” (42). Ray is ready to take responsibility and believes returning home is part of confronting his guilt. In addition to guilt, the process of leaving home, traveling, and working ages Ray. Julie’s mother notes how talking to Ray “was like talking to another adult” (124). While Barry also wants to leave town, his family isn’t willing to finance it, and he is unwilling to work the kinds of jobs Ray does, such as being a fisherman.
Barry and Helen remain in their hometown and remain a couple, in part, because of their guilt. Fueled by guilt, Helen is in denial about the accident and her future with Barry. Barry repeatedly cheats on Helen, and this avoidance of emotional intimacy is due to guilt and his problematic relationship with his mother. Barry is affected the most physically of all the teens, which connects to his role as the driver during the accident. In retribution for killing his half-brother, Bud/Collie shoots Barry, nearly paralyzing him. When Helen remains in denial, arguing that the shooting is not related to the accident, Collie (still hiding his identity as the antagonist) says to her, “It’s planned. It has to have been” (82). The antagonist’s plan evolves, accounting for the fact that paralysis might be a better punishment for Barry than death. Barry’s injury also separates him from Helen, which is a way of punishing her.
While Helen does not cheat on Barry, she does flirt with other men, and this is due to her guilt over the accident and the influence of her family. Romantic rivalry is a distraction from the antagonist’s true intentions. When Bud tells Ray he’ll wager that Julie will not go to Smith, Ray thinks Bud intends to marry Julie. Ray is able to be distracted because of the guilt he feels. The antagonist also uses this kind of duplicitous language when talking to Helen. He says, “You just might find that I’ve got some things to say that you would be interested in hearing. I may soon have a more important place in your life than you think right now” (162). Helen becomes concerned about Collie losing romantic interest in her and his waning interest negatively affecting her reputation. Her guilt has kept her in denial that someone is seeking retribution and drives her to seek male attention.
The antagonist also faces guilt related to manslaughter, except his trauma comes from the war. At war, he had to kill other soldiers and see soldiers be killed. Additionally, war kept him away from his family—too far away to protect his little half-brother. When Bud/Collie finds the teens who were involved in the accident that killed his brother, he notes how their lives “are going along just great” (183). He seeks revenge outside of the law because he has seen how legal killing—during the war—is immoral. The law and morality are not aligned in his mind. He does not have physical evidence—evidence that could be used in legal channels—that the teens were the ones who killed his brother. Even if he was able to provide proof, Bud/Collie believes the “law is easy on minors” (183).
At the end of the novel, Julie notes how guilt can be lessened by taking responsibility. She thinks, “We can never erase it [...]. What we did last summer is done. We can’t undo it, ever. But we can face it. That will be something” (199). Rather than leaving home or being consumed by denial, the teens have to face some consequences for their actions to assuage their guilt. The antagonist, also motivated by guilt, is the force that motivates the teens to confront their guilt.
Gender Roles
I Know What You Did Last Summer explores the societal constructs of femininity and masculinity, or what is expected of women and men. The protagonist, Julie, and her friend Helen both experience joy when engaging in pursuits that are categorized as feminine, such as wearing makeup. Julie liked makeup more before the accident: “When she thought back upon last year, on the hours she had spent getting ready to go out with Ray—hair always clean and wavy, makeup perfect, heart filled with excited anticipation—it was like looking back at another girl in another world” (190-91). Makeup is connected to dating and, as Julie is straight, men. Helen has to face her love of makeup, rather than a more dangerous hobby, when the antagonist chases her into her bathroom. There, “all around her, flimsy, feminine objects mocked her” (185). Rather than having a hobby that is traditionally coded as masculine, like hunting, Helen’s feminine hobby does not include objects that she can use against an attacker.
Ray and Barry offer somewhat different looks at traditional masculinity. Barry represents toxic masculinity, demonstrating his sexism through actions and thoughts throughout the novel. Helen is interested in marriage, and Barry “knew what she was aiming for, and it wasn’t what he was aiming for” (12). Rather than tell Helen that he isn’t interested in a long-term relationship, Barry cheats on her. His frat brothers support this, admiring how many women are attracted to him. For instance, Lou thinks a phone call for Barry is “probably another female” (61). To Barry, women are just objects that gain him the admiration of his male peers and increase his stature. This opinion is partially formed in relation to how his father, a workaholic, ignores his mother, which causes his mother to become obsessed with interfering in Barry’s life. He compares Helen’s desire for monogamy and marriage to his mother controlling where he lives and travels: “Sometimes Helen reminded him of his mother” (60). This is not a healthy way to view romantic relationships and is rooted in misogyny.
On the other hand, Ray generally displays a variety of attributes of traditional masculinity, some positive and some negative. He nurtures relationships with other men in his life. Ray cares about his father’s opinion about him, seeking his approval, such as when his father “clapped him on the shoulder in a man-to-man way” (45). Unlike Barry’s father, Ray’s father is very present in Ray’s life, supporting him even though his pursuits are academic rather than athletic. Ray’s father, a former professional athlete, does have some problematic opinions about women and masculinity. For instance, Ray does not feel comfortable crying as a teenager. When Julie broke up with him, “for the first time since he had been a little boy, he had cried” (53). In moments of intense emotion, Ray disregards stereotypes about how men shouldn’t cry.
However, Ray—like the other teens—characterizes people who are violent as masculine, which is a traditional gender role. When Julie suggests that Elsa could be the antagonist, “The more he thought about it though, the harder it was for Ray to imagine Elsa in the role of blackmailer” (143). Overall, the teens use male, he/him pronouns when referring to the mysterious antagonist. Making the protagonist a woman—Julie—who overcomes her antagonist subverts some of the traditional gender roles. Many books and movies feature male protagonists. However, Julie does have to be saved from Bud/Collie by Ray. Ray saves Julie because of his love for her, and ending the novel on this sentiment characterizes it as still upholding some traditional gender roles, such as “the prince on the white horse” (28).
Family and Identity Formation
The identities of the characters in I Know What You Did Last Summer are largely formed by their families. As Ray notes, “Every life is entwined with other people’s” (104). Ray is primarily discussing how actions affect not only one person but also the people they are related to. However, this quote also speaks to how character traits develop in relation to parents and siblings. Ray’s father, nicknamed The Booter, hoped Ray would be a football player like him. However, “Ray’s build has been a disappointment to The Booter, and he had always known it. At the same time, he had known that his father loved him. Teasing comments were tempered with affection” (43). Ray turned out to be more academic than athletic, and his father’s mixed reaction causes Ray to seek out validation from Barry, his football player friend. If Ray hadn’t felt like he disappointed his father by not playing football, he might not have voted to keep the car accident a secret—siding with Barry rather than Julie or his conscience.
Helen forms her identity in contrast to her parents and her sister, Elsa. She “had only to look at her mother, haggard from years of childbearing, and her father, sweating out his days at construction work” (35) to decide she wanted a different life from theirs. Helen’s obsession with becoming conventionally pretty is her method for escaping the fate of her parents. She uses her looks to get a good-paying gig, putting her in a different socioeconomic position than her family. Helen’s success at becoming conventionally attractive and changing her life leads to Elsa’s “bitterness, the terrible bitterness” (121). Elsa condemns Helen for hanging out with teens whose families have more money than theirs, calling Julie and Barry “high-class people” (119). The animosity between Elsa and Helen contributes to Helen not trusting many women. Julie is her only close female friend, and “despite the fact that they dated boys who went around together, the girls themselves had little in common” (118). Julie is not only more academically gifted than Helen but also is much closer to her mother.
The strong relationship between Julie and her mother can be contrasted with the troubled relationship between Barry and his mother. Julie’s mother, Mrs. James, is very intuitive, sensing when Julie changes because of the accident. Mrs. James says, “I can almost pinpoint the day it happened” (3). She is attentive to changes in Julie’s habits and personality. This attentiveness is one reason Julie wants to take responsibility for the accident. She tells Ray, “If we’re facing this, then let’s really face it” (93). In addition to being aware of Julie’s moods and activities in her hometown, Mrs. James supports Julie going away to Smith College to expand her horizons.
On the other hand, Barry’s mother, Celia Cox, tries to keep him as close to her as possible. When Barry is injured, he fears becoming paralyzed and ending up “flat on my back at home in a ‘nice, restful’ newly painted green bedroom with my mom standing guard at the door” (136). Celia’s controlling nature leads to Barry lying to Ray about the phone call that resulted in him being shot. Barry is jealous of Ray’s freedom—his ability to travel while working odd jobs, rather than being trapped by his mother.
The antagonist, Bud/Collie, also forms his vengeful identity because of his family’s reaction to the loss of his half-brother. After Daniel’s death, his mother ends up in a psychiatric hospital. When discussing Barry’s mother with Helen, Collie says, “Women get like that when something happens to a kid. My own mom’s that way” (81). His mother’s psychological distress is one reason Collie seeks out revenge. Another reason is his close relationship with his brother. When Ray guesses “whoever was closest to the kid” (90) is the one coming after the teens, Ray has not yet guessed the antagonist’s identity, but he has ascertained the antagonist’s relationship to the car accident victim.
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