Doe Season

The conflicts that arise when a child has experiences that initiates her into adulthood, or at least toward that end, can be both a growing and learning process, and it can reveal that the individual is not willing or able to follow that path toward an identity that they initially thought they would embrace. In ‘Doe Season’ David Michael Kaplan describes Andy (real name is Andrea) as somewhat tomboyish. She may want to go hunting with her father because she is close to her father and wants to enhance that bond, or she may just want to experience that first deer kill, which is a rite of passage for male or female in modern days.
There seems to be a back and forth play between the ocean scenes, where her mother is very comfortable and carefree, and the woods, where Andy’s father is at ease. It is now the time to try her hand at deer hunting, and Andy goes through the motions of drinking coffee and sleeping in the tent that all go along with being out in the woods. She has to deal with Charlie Spoon and his son, Mac, who try to act macho at times, including making fun of her boyish nickname (109) and Mac talking about male body parts (90), but Andy is able to keep up with them all in spirit. She prays she will get a doe (96), most likely just to prove herself more than anything.
Andy finally gets her doe, but it runs off as if just maimed. Andy is upset because “I don’t like to think of it suffering” (180). She dreamed she saw the deer and actually caressed its heart. When they found the deer in the woods and the men started to gut it, Andy came to reality that she did not like the killing. At that point her mind retreated to the ocean where her mother could find peace. It became a character building at the least.