question 3

In “Doe Season” the protagonist, Andy is introduced to the concept of growing up. It is a transitional story about a young girl, and how influential the environment around her can be in regards to shaping her as a person. Several references are made in the story about how the woods are familiar, whereas the ocean is vast and mysterious. These two subjects suggest the transition that she has to make from childhood to adulthood.

Andy thinks upon the woods that back her house, as she is driving with her dad and company to go deer hunting for the first time. She notes that the woods “stretch all the way to here…for miles and miles…but they are the same woods” (Kirszner/Mandell pg 156). The woods represent her childhood, the familiar, the unchanging. No worries, no responsibilities other than to be a child. Later, the sea is referenced to adulthood, vast and mysterious.

The first time she saw the ocean, the unknown, “it frightened her. It was huge and empty, yet always moving. Everything lay hidden” (Kirszner/Mandell pg 459). Growing up is a frightening thought for a child. Everything would be up to you, and you wouldn’t know what to expect in the future. During a vacation to the Jersey Shore, Andy’s mother’s bikini top came loose, and that alluded to the fact that she would become a woman, amongst a sea of the unknown which is adulthood. The deer’s blood is a reference to a loss of innocence, and Andy, no longer completely a child, wishes to be called Andrea which further cements her transformation.