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Summer By David Updike Analysis

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In David Updike’s “Summer”, Homer is overcome with an innocence yet fixated crush on Sandra. The adolescents spend their school-free summer at Sandra and Fred’s family lake house. This vacation, according to Homer, proves to be different. Homer, Fred and Sandra’s transition to adulthood is much like the change from summer to fall they are experiencing. If Homer could get out of his own head, then he could get the girl and summer of his dreams.
In the beginning of the summer, Homer describes his days “spent in the adolescent pursuit of childish pleasure” (283). The summer heats up and Homer and Fred start to partake in more adult like activities such as drinking and smoking. Likewise, Homer looks at Sandra in a more desirable, mature way. “Her nightgown, pulled and buttoned to her chin, pierced him with a regret” (Updike 284). Homer is cognitive that she had been in front of him all along and he had “grown up in the shadow or her subtle beauty” (284), but as a young boy he was more interested in tennis and childish games like young boys do. Later, he is playing in a tennis match and when Sandra gets up to leave, Homer is distracted by this …show more content…

Because of Homer’s doubtfulness and boyish nature, his love for Sandra still festers silently in his mind and for only him to know. When all hope seems lost because summer is over, Sandra’s subtle placement of her foot onto Homer signifies the reciprocated feelings shared between them. The physical touch between the two represent the mutual feelings the two shy young adults were both feeling. Updike’s open ending is open up to the reader’s interpretation of what will happen next with Homer and Sandra. Will they confess their attraction? Will they continue to progress their desires through the colder months ahead? Or, what will happen in the last fleeting moments of summer stay frozen in time at the lake

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