Peyton Place

In this section, the novel follows Allison and her eighth grade classmates through an important developmental stage as they enter adolescence. Allison emerges as an aspiring writer; Peyton Place can be classified to some extent as a Künstlerroman (a German term referring to a novel that describes the growth and development of an artist or writer). Allison’s sensitive and observant tendencies make her teenage years challenging, but she finds an outlet through imagining and writing stories. The idea that “[she] could write a story about Miss Hester and her house!” (65) gives Allison a sense of agency during a time when she feels unmoored by her changing body and shifting social dynamics. Allison’s initial inspiration is rooted in the town where she grows up, which serves to highlight the ambiguity of the small town. Peyton Place is undoubtedly stifling and repressive in some ways, but it also does seem to be generative as Allison develops a sensitivity to beauty and an interest in the hidden lives of the people around her. In fact, the relentless gossip of Peyton Place may be considered as a positive influence on Allison’s ability to empathize and imagine the interior lives of her characters.

The key scene in which Allison begins writing a story contains strong Gothic elements: Norman and Allison are speculating about Hester Goodale, an eccentric and solitary older woman who displays tropes such as living alone in a dilapidated house with a black cat. Allison is explicitly inspired by the American Gothic author Edgar Allan Poe; Poe’s fiction includes elements such as incest, murder, and repressed and hidden secrets. This allusion may function to draw a parallel between Metalious’s work (often derided for being low-brow) and texts that are generally considered to be works of literature (while engaging with similar topics and themes). Both Hester’s mysterious and sinister house, and the enigmatic Peyton castle (which looms over the otherwise indistinct American town) reflect Gothic tropes and show that Metalious’s novel can be considered an adaptation of this genre, fused with a critique of the social mores of American small towns. Like Gothic literature, the castle symbolizes older times and a European inheritance that haunts the town even while seeming to be at odds with it; when Tom Makris first arrives, a resident of the town explains, “Samuel Peyton, castle real, true, honest-to-God castle, transported over here from England, every stick and stone of it” (102).

Although she is a minor character, Hester Goodale adds a richly allusive element to the novel; in addition to the explicit allusion to Poe, her name (when combined with the setting of a small New England town) may be an allusion to Hester Prynne, the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. Set in 17th-century colonial America, Hawthorne’s novel explores the experience of a woman being publicly shamed and condemned for her sexuality (and bearing a child out of wedlock). This plotline echoes some of the key elements of Peyton Place and shows how the rigid policing of social and moral norms within small New England communities has a long history. Hester is also one of very few women depicted in the community who has never been married, and her fate as an isolated eccentric reveals part of why young girls in the community (with the notable exception of Allison) see marriage as a social imperative.

During the spring of 1937, after Tom Makris’s arrival in town, themes of burgeoning sexuality for both Allison and Constance become prominent. Pathetic fallacy makes use of the spring setting (typically associated with revitalization, renewal, and a return to fertility) to reflect the inner experiences of both characters as mother and daughter simultaneously experience the stirrings of sexual desire. Both are ambivalent and even fail to recognize this experience; Allison has absorbed her mother’s implicit messaging that sexuality is dangerous and clings to a belief that she hates boys while simultaneously “[she] began to wonder how it would feel if it were Rodney’s hands on her breasts” (91). Meanwhile, “Constance was as unstill as the river in floodtime [but] she did not recognize the symptoms in herself as akin to the painful restlessness of adolescence” (110). It is developmentally appropriate for Allison to be grappling with these new desires, but Constance experiencing a sexual awakening reflects how her sense of shame has led to repression, further developing the theme Shame and Ambivalence Towards Female Sexuality.

Tom Makris is an outsider who can function as a kind of reader surrogate, viewing the town from a distance and through an anthropological lens. Tom is generally non-judgmental and pragmatic, but he is also keenly observant, and willing to point out the hypocrisies of the town he moves to. Tom is positioned as an outsider and as a kind of threat not only because he comes from a large urban center, but through his physical characterization: He is described as “real dark, and big” (103), and his Greek heritage is repeatedly referenced and exoticized. Tom is both simultaneously unsettling and alluring to the town in general and to Constance specifically. His arrival in the town is a significant inciting incident that disrupts the existing stasis and marks the beginning of rising action in Constance’s internal conflict around the shame of her past, and the conflict between Constance and Allison.

While the novel received criticism for its stark representation of sexuality and other taboo topics, the book remains steadfast in its dedication to portraying real issues, never glazing over topics such as Lucas’s abuse or Allison’s sexual desires. The men drinking alcohol in the cellar show the extent to which alcohol dependency has affected the townspeople in Peyton Place and reveals a darker side of the adult dynamics at play in the story. While the teenagers are often admonished for their behaviors, adults like Lucas Cross receive minimal repercussions. Norman’s mother’s controlling behavior is also elaborated on in this section, highlighting the way in which boys can be abused or manipulated. While this plot arc is often reserved for female characters, the author doesn’t shy away from depicting vulnerable male characters, instead showing how complex and difficult Norman’s dynamics with his mother can be and how they have deeply affected him.