Fiction. Novel: Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury, Bantam Thesis

Total Length: 735 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 0

Page 1 of 2

fiction." Novel: "Dandelion Wine" Ray Bradbury, Bantam publish. 1976. Please thesis statement: Summer a time joy Douglas (Spaulding) embraces nature, spends time family, experiences suspense magic Summer days.

Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine is a catalyst novel, written in such a manner that it allowed and encouraged the author to transcend memories and be sent back into past in times of summer. Bradbury's source of inspiration for the novel was his own childhood and the action in the story surrounds 12-year-old boy Douglas Spaulding living in a fictional small town in America. For Douglas, summer is a time of joy because he embraces nature, spends time with family, and experiences suspense and magic of summer days. In the following, we will address the experiencing of summer in the novel and ?the joy of embracing nature in summertime.

The summer of 1928 surprises Douglas while at his grandparents' house and it embellishes him with anticipations of plucking ripening fruits, diving into rivers, and climbing trees. The 12-year-old becomes aware of his own aliveness one ?special day? while out in the forest with his father and his brother, Tom. By walking into a spider's web, Douglas is able to tell that there is something different about the day. The ?grass whispering under his body? reinforces the boy's belief that something special has happened.
Thus, nature acts upon the boy by catalysis to bring about his awakening and sense of existence. This is why the experiencing of summer in the novel is, for Douglas, of doubled significance. It preserves the routine joys of a child like bathing in the rivers and it introduces the philosophical perspective of what it means to experience life in awakened consciousness of the senses. And nature's resources in summertime are the instruments by which Douglas becomes deeply immersed into his aliveness. The boy's self-awareness is pictured by the author in a natural setting so as to imply that Douglas' connection with life is evidenced by how he experiences nature in summertime.

Infused with powerful sensations, Douglas perceives dandelion flowers within a new frame of perspective. They become the symbolic connotation for an ever lasting summer season. Once the flowers undergo the process of distillation,….....

Need Help Writing Your Essay?