Dandelion Wine
Encyclopedia
Dandelion Wine is a 1957
novel
by Ray Bradbury
, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym
for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois
. The novel developed from the short story "Dandelion Wine" which appeared in the June 1953 issue of Gourmet magazine.
The title refers to a wine
made with dandelion petals and other ingredients, commonly citrus fruit
. In the story, dandelion wine, as made by the protagonist's
grandfather, serves as a metaphor
for packing all of the joys of summer into a single bottle.
The main character of the story is Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year-old boy loosely patterned after Bradbury. Most of the book is focused upon the routines of small-town America, and the simple joys of yesterday.
Farewell Summer
, the official sequel to Dandelion Wine, was published in October 2006. While Farewell Summer is a direct continuation of the plot of Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes
, a novel with a completely different plot and characters, is often paired with the latter because of their stylistic and thematic similarities. Together, the three novels form a Green Town trilogy
. A fourth volume, Summer Morning, Summer Night, published in 2008, contains twenty-seven Green Town stories and vignette
s, seventeen of which have never been published before.
of his Grandfather's house that gives him a panoramic view of the town, Douglas wakes up early on the first day of summer and performs an elaborate series of actions that coincide with the lightening of the sky and awakening of the townspeople. He does this in such a way that implies magic, thus setting the basis of the novel as collections of life events tinged with a degree of fantasy
.
Chapter 2 (Illumination)—Douglas goes with his ten-year-old brother Tom and his father to pick fox grape
s. While Tom and his father act like today is just an ordinary day, Douglas senses an inexplicable presence around them. When Tom initiates a friendly rough-and-tumble fight between the two of them, Douglas suddenly realizes what it is: the revelation that he's alive
. He finds it to be a glorious and liberating feeling.
Chapter 3 (Dandelion Wine) — Dandelion wine is presented as a metaphor
of summer here, bottled for the winter season of illnesses and wheezing. In Douglas' words: "Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered."
Chapter 4-5 (Summer in the Air) — Douglas discovers that his feet won't move as fast as that of the other boys because his sneakers are worn out. He becomes entranced by a pair of brand-new Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Shoes in a shop window, and thinks on how the need for a "magic" pair of sneakers to run in the green grass is something only boys can understand when his father argues against buying another. The local shoe seller, Mr. Sanderson, is initially resistant to selling the sneakers to Douglas, especially since he doesn't even have enough money to pay for them upfront. Douglas, however, convinces him to try on a pair of his own sneakers, which triggers memories in Mr. Sanderson of when he was a kid and ran like the antelope
s and gazelle
s. He agrees to let Douglas have the sneakers in return for work done by him in the shop to pay off the bill. The story ends with Douglas speeding away in the distance and Mr. Sanderson picking up his discarded old sneakers.
Chapter 6 — Douglas shows to Tom a tablet that he is using to record his summer in, under two sections labeled "Rites and Ceremonies" and "Discoveries and Revelations." The contents are what would be expected for a kid, including a "revelation" that kids and grown-ups don't get along with each other because they're "separate races and 'never the twain shall meet.'" Tom suggests a revelation of his own; that night is created from "shadows crawling out from under five billion trees."
Chapter 7 (Season of Sitting) — Another ritual of summer is accomplished with the setting up of the porch swing as a place for night-long conversation. Douglas comments on how sitting in the porch swing feels somehow "right" because one would always be comforted by the droning, ceaseless voices of the adults. In keeping up with the fantasy-tinged atmosphere of the novel, the chapter gradually shifts from a realistic beginning, in which the family is setting up the swing, to an almost dreamlike conclusion, in which the grown-ups' voices are personified as drifting on into the future.
Chapter 8-9 (The Happiness Machine) — Leo Auffmann, listening to elderly people's gloomy and fatalistic conversations, insists that they should not dwell on such miserable topics. Douglas and his grandfather, passing by, suggest to Leo that he should make a Happiness Machine. After the conversing people laugh at this apparently absurd idea, Leo becomes determined to do just that. A brief scene of him returning to his family of six children indicates his happiness at home, exemplified when his wife Lena asks, "Something's wrong?" after Leo expresses his desire to build a Happiness Machine.
Chapter 10 (The Night) — Interposed between Leo's story is another tale referring to Douglas' family. It starts out relatively uneventfully, with Tom running to Mrs. Singer's store to get ice cream at nine o'clock on the same night for him and Douglas. However, by nine-thirty, Douglas has not returned, which causes his worried mother to venture to the ravine with Tom. Tom, despite the darkness of the night, feels safe because he is holding his mother's hand and also because he has little understanding of Death
. His sense of security, however, vanishes when he feels his mother's hand tremble and realizes that she is afraid, like him. The ensuing revelation that apparently unfazed grown-ups feel loneliness and pain too unnerves him and makes him aware of the darkness surrounding them. Just before he feels overwhelmed, Douglas and his friends return, breaking the spell of aloneness. Tom later tells Douglas that the ravine would not belong in Leo's Happiness Machine, thus contrasting the pleasures humans wish for with the realities they receive instead.
Chapter 11 (The Happiness Machine–continued) — In a relatively short chapter, Leo sits with his wife Lena on the porch swing in the night. Lena tells him that they don't need a Happiness Machine, but Leo says that he's going to build the Machine for others that would cure all melancholy. He is greeted with only silence, but is too preoccupied with noting the sounds of nature that would belong in the Machine to notice this foreshadowing
.
Chapter 12 (The Lawns of Summer) — Another interception of Leo's story which re-focuses on the Spaulding family; Douglas' grandfather begins the day, happily reveling in the sound of the lawn mower running on their lawn, an indicator to him that summer has truly begun. Grandma, however, tells him that Bill Forrester, the man cutting their grass, is planning to plant new grass on their lawn that will only grow to a certain height, thus eliminating the need for lawn mowers. (Note: no such grass actually exists yet in the real world) Horrified at this, Grandpa gives Bill a firm lecture on how little things can matter more than the big ones, especially to experienced people like him. Bill attempts to change his mind, but only convinces Grandpa further of his position when he learns that the new grass will kill off the dandelions.
Grandpa finally pays Bill the cost of the grass flats in return for him not installing the flats in his lawn. He takes a nap and wakes up in the afternoon to find Bill cutting the lawn again, having learned to appreciate the "little things," thanks to Grandpa.
Chapter 13 (The Happiness Machine — continued) — Leo, still obsessed with creating the Happiness Machine, asks Lena if she is "pleased, contented, joyful, [or] delighted." Lena gives a sarcastic reply which offends Leo who is taking his goal seriously, and they get into an argument. The squabble ends only when Lena realizes that she's burned their dinner for the first time in twenty years.
Leo then spends several weeks toiling in his garage to build his Happiness Machine. During this time, the state of his family disintegrates, but Leo is too busy with his invention to pay attention to his wife's warnings.
At last, Leo completes his Happiness Machine. Ironically, the Machine turns out to cause misery instead of the expected bliss, causing both Saul, his son, and Lena to weep after sitting in it. Lena explains to him that a Happiness Machine cannot be built for humans because it would only give them everything they wanted all the time, and produce no fulfillment. Furthermore, it makes them pine for things they shouldn't even be thinking about, such as when a dancing stimulation in the Machine caused her to miss the times when Leo would take her out for dances, hence causing them to feel only unhappiness about their lives. Leo, still disbelieving, decides to take a test run in the Machine himself, but just as he is about to do so, the Machine catches fire, and burns down to the ground.
After the incident, Leo comments to Douglas and his father that he's been a fool because the real Happiness Machine has been right in front of him all along. He shows them his newfound Happiness Machine running in perfect order — his family.
Chapter 14 — As the Spaulding family prepares to shake out the rugs, Douglas and Tom's imaginations turn this chore into a magical discovery, fancying that they see the happenings and neighbors in their town in the stains of one rug. A lavish metaphor at the end of the chapter describes Tom beating the rug so hard that the dust rises up to meet him, another surrealistic chapter ending possibly a reference to the Judeo-Christian
belief that man was created from dust.
Chapter 15-16 (Season of Disbelief) — Mrs. Bentley, a seventy-two year old woman who saves all memorabilia
from her past, finds her beliefs challenged by two girls named Alice and Jane, who meet her along with Tom and don't believe her when she says that she was young like them once. Claiming that she's lying, they run away laughing, leaving Mrs. Bentley infuriated.
The next time they meet, Mrs. Bentley shows them some of her relics, including a photograph of her as a child. Alice and Jane say that the objects don't prove anything, since she could have got them from another girl, and Mrs. Bentley's insistence that they will one day be old like her fails to unnerve them. They run away with her "stolen" possessions, further shaking Mrs. Bentley's confidence in the authenticity of her childhood. As she sifts through her memorabilia, she hears the voice of her husband speaking to her, explaining that the items don't really belong to her because they came from the past, not from the present she is living in now. Even affidavit
s wouldn't change the fact that she's no longer the self that the saved clothes and pictures were meant for.
Mrs. Bentley finally understands, and discards the tokens of her past the next day with the help of the girls and Tom. From then on, she lives in the present only, confirming the girls' belief that she was never young "in a million trillion years."
In a following chapter, Tom later tells Douglas of his revelation that old people never truly were young, which Douglas writes down in his tablet.
Chapter 17-18 (The Last, the Very Last) — Douglas and Tom are introduced to a living "Time Machine
" in the form of Colonel Freeleigh who narrates incredibly vivid descriptions of his personal experiences, including a fatal bullet trick
performed by Ching Ling Soo, being on the prairie with Pawnee Bill
, and witnessing the Battle of Fort Sumter
. His anecdotes draw the boys themselves into the detailed events, and all agree that the colonel is a true Time Machine.
Similar to the previous story in Chapter 14, there is an expository chapter in which Douglas and Tom record the story in Douglas' tablet and provide both casual and profound commentary on its implications.
Chapter 19 (The Green Machine) — Two elderly women, Miss Fern and Miss Roberts, take refuge in their attic after they accidentally run over Mister Quartermain while riding the Green Machine, believing him to be dead. Huddling together, they recall the time when they bought the Green Machine from a salesman as a noiseless, smooth form of transportation. The first week on the Green Machine went by like a dream, until the accident with Mister Quartermain. Fern and Roberts lament on how they did not stop or at least get help for him, and then resolve to not drive the Green Machine ever again. Later on, they learn that Mister Quartermain did not die after all.
Chapter 20 (The Trolley) — Douglas is horrified to find out that yet another form of transportation for the summer is about to be gone; the trolley
run by Mr. Tridden, which will have its tracks replaced with new ones for a bus. On the last day of operation Mr. Tridden offers the children a free ride, and Douglas, Tom, and a group of children from the neighbourhood climb aboard. During the ride, they comment on how a bus cannot emulate the feel and smell of a trolley, further emphasized by use of gorgeous imagery to describe the sights the boys see while in the trolley. At the end of the line, Mr. Tridden uses an emergency generator to take the streetcar on a track line abandoned for eighteen years that leads to a lake where once the trolley took people to summer festivities. Mr Tridden relates the events of a summer night in 1910 before taking the children home. When the trip concludes, Douglas reflects on how he will always remember the trolley tracks, even after they have been buried in reality. In a humorous reversal, the somber meditation on the vanishing of the trolley is punctuated by a brief snippet of Douglas agreeing to a game of kick the can
, abruptly ending the chapter on a lighthearted note.
Chapter 21-22 (Statues — created for novel) — Douglas' best friend John Huff is introduced and described in this chapter as the ideal boy to be friends with. John, however, tells Douglas that his family will be moving tomorrow. In response to Douglas' protests, John comments on how he has suddenly realized that he's taken so many things for granted in his neighborhood that he can't remember most of them, including his parents' faces, and on how he's afraid that Douglas will similarly forget him. Douglas assures him that he has a perfect memory of his face, but ruins his claim when he can't remember that John's eyes are green
.
Douglas attempts to enjoy his last day with John, but keeps on being reminded of the diminishing amount of time before John's departure. He tries a last-ditch effort to keep John from leaving by "freezing" him for three hours when the children play statues
. John refuses to play along and instead begins another round of Statues, in which he "freezes" Douglas instead just before he leaves for good. After he realizes that John is gone for good, Douglas, thinking of how statues stay still compared to humans who can't be controlled, yells out into the distance that he hates John.
Another expository chapter, this one the shortest yet at only one page, has Douglas asking Tom to promise that he will stay with him. He also says that he's concerned about how God runs the world, to which Tom replies simply, "He tries," most likely an accepting remark that life isn't perfect.
Chapter 23-24 — Elmira Brown, a high-strung woman, believes that Clara Goodwater, her rival for the position of president for the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge, is a witch who is causing her numerous small accidents, including tripping over objects in front of her. Elmira accuses Clara of performing dark magic on her to sabotage her chances in the election, using information from her mailman
husband about a stack of books for magic spells that was sent to her house. Clara, in response, says that the books are for her younger cousin, and claims that Elmira's accidents are caused by her own clumsiness. Unconvinced, Elmira brews a potion for herself to counter Clara's "dark magic," and brings Tom with her to the ladies' meeting as her "charm."
The potion, however, does not stop her from continuing to knock things over, and she in fact begins to feel strangely disoriented as she talks on the platform. Elmira loses the election yet again to Clara, who then draws from her purse a voodoo doll with several tacks embedded in it. A dazed Elmira asks Tom to show her the way to the restroom, but she makes a wrong turn and tumbles down a flight of stairs. Miraculously, she has no broken bones despite heavy bruises, and Clara apologizes to her and even offers a second vote to elect her as president. The story ends with all the women running up the stairs, laughing and crying at the same time. It is left unclear on whether Elmira's fall was caused by mental disorder
, nausea after drinking her "potion," or real witchcraft by Clara.
Another one-page chapter shows Tom telling Douglas about his weird encounter with the ladies at the lodge, and they comment on how the town is full of magic, illustrating how kids view events differently than grown-ups do.
Chapter 25-26 (The Window) — Colonel Freeleigh, the same "Time Machine" the boys listened to in Chapter 17, has been confined to a hospital for his weakening health. His sole comfort is a phone in his room that he can use to dial the number of an old friend in Mexico City who lays his phone on an open window to allow him to hear the bustling noises outside. When the nurse learns of his phone calls, she tells him that she will give orders to take the phone away to prevent him from overworking his heart further. A desperate Freeleigh, feeling his chest pains worsen, dials his friend's number once more, begging for one last listening to the sounds of the city people. As his friend does so, Freeleigh immerses himself in the activity of Mexico City, thinking of how grateful he is for this reminder that the world is still alive and moving. When Douglas and the other children stop by for a visit, they find Freeleigh dead, still holding the phone. Douglas listens to the phone in time to hear "two thousand miles away, the closing of a window," a metaphor for Freeleigh's death.
In the following chapter, Douglas sits silently as Tom pretends to be a Civil War soldier, pondering on how with Colonel Freeleigh's death, all of his memories of the historical figures died too. Tom, however, fails to share in his brooding, only suggesting that he write his thoughts down in his tablet before resuming his play.
Chapter 27 — July has ended, and thirty-one bottles of dandelion wine have been made. Douglas, remembering his recent string of losses of friends and machines, wonders why each bottle looks identical and not representative of the day it was made on. He says out loud that August will be tedious and uneventful, to which his grandfather attempts to remedy his melancholy with a swig of dandelion wine and some ordered exercises.
Chapter 28-29 (The Swan) — Bill Forrester, with Douglas at his side, orders lime-vanilla ice at the soda fountain. His unusual request catches the attention of ninety-five year old Helen Loomis who invites him to visit her house tomorrow. Bill complies, and he and Helen start a friendly conversation about the appearances people keep up for each other, that soon diverges into Loomis acting as a "Time Machine" similar to Colonel Freeleigh to transport Bill into the pyramids of Egypt. Bill comments on how comfortable he feels talking to her, and Helen replies by reminding him that she's only an old woman. While lounging in his chair, Bill attempts to envision her as being young again; he succeeds for a moment in seeing "the swan," which he unintentionally says out loud, strangely disquieting Helen.
Bill continues to visit Helen every day for two and a half weeks, but only on the last day does he tell her what motivated him to visit her in the first place: a photograph taken of her when she was twenty. He had seen the picture in the newspaper for the town ball and intended to go to the ball to seek the beautiful girl it showed, until someone told him that the picture had been taken a long time ago and had been used by the newspaper every year since then to advertise the ball. Helen replies with an overview of a young man she once knew in her youth who was handsome but wild and reckless; he left her, but when she saw Bill at the fountain that day, she was strongly reminded of him — almost as if he were a reincarnation
of her former companion.
Some time later, Bill finds Helen writing a letter addressed to him. Helen explains to him that she will be dead in a few days, and that the letter she is writing will come to him then. When Bill attempts to protest about the lack of time they have had together, Helen says that she believes that they will meet again sometime later — possibly in reincarnated forms. She tells him to marry and live happily, but says that he has to die before the age of fifty in order to ensure that when they are reincarnated, they will be of the correct ages and be able to meet and fall in love with each other.
Two days later, Bill receives the letter. Inside it is a note reading, "A dish of lime-vanilla ice."
The next chapter shifts back to the viewpoint of Douglas, who asks Tom on how come Mr. Forrester and Mrs. Loomis did not get a happy ending
, as in the movies. However, the boys' attentions are quickly distracted from the subject when they arrive at Summer's Ice House, and turn to the legend of the Lonely One in the town, acting as an introduction to the next story.
In the expository chapter, it is revealed in the conversation between Doug, Tom, and Charlie that Lavinia killed the Lonely One by stabbing him with a pair of sewing scissors. Charlie berates Lavinia for killing off their main source of thrills, but Tom convinces him that the actual Lonely One is still alive because the man they took in looked like "a plain, everyday man who wouldn't pull the wings off even so much as a fly," instead of the tall, bulgy-eyed monster they think he should look like. Neither of them listen to Douglas who says that he was at the ravine
at that time and witnessed Lavinia discovering Elizabeth's body, and thus can no longer treat the Lonely One as just an amusingly scary figure.
Chapter 32 (Good-by, Grandma) — Douglas' great-grandma, after countless years of assisting her family, feels that her time is expiring with a growing tiredness. She lies down in her bed amidst the protests of her relatives, waiting for her death. When Douglas asks her who's going to do all the chores she did around the house, she says that they belong to anyone who wants them, and reminds him that she will not truly be dead in his mind. As her family leaves her to rest alone, she returns to the dream she was in before she was born, dying happily and peacefully.
Chapter 33 — Disillusioned by the recent deaths and losses, Douglas, by the light of a multitude of fireflies, writes for a long time on the shortcomings of things and people, associating them mainly with breaking down (machines) or death (people). He seems to be on the verge of a great revelation as he quickly scribbles at the end a summary of the dark side of his summer experience:
However, the fireflies' light has gone out, so Douglas stops writing and releases the fireflies into the night. He then tries to fall asleep.
Chapter 34 (The Tarot Witch–created for novel) — Douglas takes Tom to a Penny Arcade to show him the mechanical Tarot
Witch there. When Tom asks him why he wanted him to see her, Douglas says that he asks too many questions. He then thinks to himself that it's because he was initially elated when he realized that he was alive, before he realized that being alive meant that he must die someday too, no matter how much he wants to prevent it. No longer certain about his life, he wants to take comfort in something that he knows never will go away, i.e. the permanent amusements at the carnival. Douglas gets a typical fortune from the Tarot Witch, but the card she gives Tom is blank. Tom suggests that the Witch might have run out of ink, but Douglas insists that the blank card must have some special meaning. Thinking that she might have written a message in invisible ink
on the back of the card, Douglas runs a match over it. He accidentally burns up the card in the process, but says that he read a French
message from the Witch, calling for help. He comes to the conclusion that the Witch is really a princess trapped in hot wax that someone poured over her.
Douglas plots to "rescue" the Tarot Witch by overloading a machine with coins so that Mr. Black, the carnival manager, will use them to get drunk. Mr. Black, however, goes crazy and smashes the Witch's glass case. Douglas jumps in to stop him; just as Mr. Black is about to attack him with a knife, he passes out from his drinking. Douglas and Tom confiscate the Witch, planning to free her, but just as they reach the ravine, Mr. Black reappears and flings the Witch into the ravine, to Douglas' horror.
Later on in the day, Douglas and Tom return to where the Tarot Witch is lying. Douglas says to Tom that the Witch is really alive, and that someday he will be able to free her from the wax with magic spells so that the Witch will become just another figurine. As he mentions their fortunes, another blank card falls from her sleeve. Douglas exclaims that it must be written with her thanks and a prediction that they will "live forever."
Chapter 35 (Hotter than Summer) — Douglas comes upon Tom who is counting the times cicada
s buzz every fifteen seconds to measure the temperature. Douglas reads the home thermometer as reading 87°F (31°C), but Tom, after finishing his count, says that it is actually 92° (33°C) Spaulding. Feeling woozy, Douglas begins subconsciously counting to the cicadas' buzzes too.
Chapter 36-38 (Dinner at Dawn) — This story focuses upon Mr. Jonas and his wagon full of discarded objects that he totes around town in the very early morning, allowing people to take what they need from it at no cost; many of them donating some of their old items to the wagon before it moves on forward again.
On a scorchingly hot morning, with the cicadas buzzing louder than normal with the rising temperature, Douglas lies in his bed, burning up with a fever
. Tom and his mother attempt to cool him down, to no avail. In his fever, Douglas has hallucination
s of long-lost people and machines walking past, including Mr. Tridden and his trolley, Miss Fern and Roberts riding by on their Green Machine, and Colonel Freeleigh popping up like a clock, all waving good-bye to him, which makes him cry out loud.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Tom tells Mr. Jonas about Douglas' condition and says that he's afraid that he might die. Mr. Jonas gives him a set of wind-chimes to hang by Douglas' window, but they do not make a sound because there is no wind. Mr. Jonas visits the Spaulding residence to see Douglas at seven-thirty, but Douglas' mother says that he is not to be disturbed. By nightfall, Douglas is no better, and his family takes him outside in a cot, in the hope that he will be cooled by a wind.
Finally, at twelve-thirty, Mr. Jonas makes a stop with his wagon where Douglas is sleeping and leaves him two bottles filled with air containing soothing vapor and smells from the tropics and moisture-filled areas, on the condition that he pass this favor on to someone else. The bottles of air appear to work, as Tom finds Douglas breathing the same refreshing air in and out of his nose.
The next morning, the heat and the cicadas finally fade down with the coming of rain, and Douglas is well enough to write in his tablet again of his experience.
Chapter 39 (The Magical Kitchen) — Douglas' grandma is renowned in the household for her divine cooking for the entire family. Aunt Rose, however, threatens this magic when she questions Grandma's methods of cooking, and later persuades Grandma to organize her kitchen, wear glasses, and read from a cookbook while cooking. This systematic cooking that results, however, destroys the uniqueness and magicalness of Grandma's dinners for the rest of the family. In response to this, Grandpa bids Aunt Rose good-bye, but Grandma appears to have lost her touch for cooking.
While the rest of the members are awake in their beds, Douglas sneaks down to the kitchen and restores it back to its original chaos, getting rid of the glasses and the cookbook. The family heads downstairs to find that Grandma has reconnected with her cooking again as it was meant to be, and everyone enjoys a magnificent late dinner. The chapter closes with Douglas thinking on how he repaid Mr. Jonas by passing on his favor.
Chapter 40 (Green Wine for Dreaming–created for novel) — The final chapter of the novel concludes Douglas' summer, as he and Tom spot school supplies advertised for sale in a shop window. The boys reminisce about the events of summer with the aid of the labeled dandelion wine bottles, guaranteeing that they will remember this summer in their hearts. The Spaulding family stores away their porch swing for autumn, as others reverse their summer preparations as the season draws to an end.
The end of the novel echoes the beginning, with Douglas performing his waking-up act in reverse, pretending to switch the lights off and put everyone else to sleep before finally going to sleep himself, ending a very eventful and memorable summer.
Tom Spaulding — Douglas' younger brother, Tom is the more logical and skeptical one, often questioning his brother's seemingly inexplicable actions. Tom is also somewhat more childish and naïve than Douglas, often failing to understand the seriousness of Douglas' thoughts about his life; nonetheless, he often acts as the voice of reason when Douglas' imagination gets the better of him.
Charlie — A friend of Douglas and Tom, Charlie often hangs around with them. Charlie sometimes comments on a situation or on the behavior of other characters. Other than that, he gets little character development and acts as more of a side character for Douglas and Tom's adventures.
to represent the magic and wonders of childhood. Even with the focus on the bright days of summer, Bradbury, in his typical style, briefly explores the horrific
side of these events. The primary example is when Douglas' initial joy at realizing he's alive is dampened by the counter-revelation that he will die someday, which parallels his similar gains of knowledge and losses of companions during his summer.
Similarly, Mrs. Bentley must learn to give up her fear of old age by accepting that her younger days are permanently gone and that the only thing that matters is the present. Her relinquishment of her childhood relics signifies her liberation from the past and acceptance of her current self.
The first example of this is when Grandpa tells Bill that a tidy lawn is no compensation for the loss of the simple pleasure of mowing the grass and also the elimination of dandelions, "weeds" valuable in their own way. While Bill initially sees the invention of grass that stays the same length as a time saver, Grandpa embraces the longer and old-fashioned methods because they let him work with his hands and with nature, something a physical invention cannot emulate.
Leo Auffmann's story expands this point. Leo believes that his Happiness Machine will cure all ills, but the Machine does the reverse because he forgot to factor in our intrinsic human needs. Ironically, Leo’s attempt to let people experience their deepest dreams creates a profound sadness for what they will never have while losing focus on the irreplaceable treasures of the heart. At the end of the story, Leo discovers the true Happiness Machine is his loving family — the ultimate symbol of human intimacy existing in their everyday lives.
The story of the Happiness Machine can also be contrasted with the “Time Machine,” an old man who nonetheless captivates the boys with his memories of historical events in a way no machine (such as the television
) ever could.
s, the Spauldings treat them as valuable possessions, converting them from simple plants into a medicine for winter. The making of dandelion wine thus reflects the pattern of Douglas' summer; events and things that would be seen as mundane by grown-ups gain magic and appreciation through his unbound imagination and thirst for adventure.
in contrast to Bradbury's usual blend of horror/science fiction and nostalgia. He stated that this trait was what set it apart from his other works:
The novel's heavy reliance on poetical imagery has produced mixed criticism. Many critics say that these are the novel's greatest strengths because the tone matches the spirit of Bradbury's memories and optimistic outlook. John Zuck classified it as "spiritual fiction," paying particular attention to the religious theme of holding on to ephemeral beauty (i.e. the short-lived summer).
Other critics, however, label this style as overwrought and too "feel-good." Alan David Price stated that while "Bradbury is at his most effective when evoking a New World joy and optimism," there are times when his prose becomes overly sentimental and his "gently fantastic style becomes plain tiring." He nonetheless classifies Dandelion Wine as "an engrossing read."
The noted critic and author Damon Knight
was also downbeat:
Knight remarks further that "The period is as vague as the place; Bradbury calls it 1928, but it has no feeling of genuine recollection; most of the time it is like second-hand 1910."
The novel was also made into a 1997 Russia
n film adaptation, titled Vino iz oduvanchikov. Currently, there is no English film adaptation available for the book.
Dandelion Wine was produced as a full-cast radio play by the Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air, in 2006. Ray Bradbury wrote the script from his stage play, and the production was released by Blackstone Audio. The cast included Jerry Robbins as Bill Forrester, William Humphrey as Douglas Spaulding, Rik Pierce as Grandpa, and James McLean as Tom Spaulding. The production was directed by Nancy Curran Willis, with music by Jeffrey Gage, and was produced by Jerry Robbins.
After hearing the production, Ray Bradbury sent a letter to producer Jerry Robbins: "I've just played for the second time your production of Dandelion Wine and it's fabulous. I'm so very proud of it. In fact, it made me weep. In your own way you've told me that I have a chance of part of me living beyond the day that I leave this earth. This production is simply incredible." Phil Nichols of www.Bradburymedia.co.uk said of this recording, "The audio production is extravagant, and benefits from some strong performances and an extensive musical score...one of the most lively and energetic Bradbury productions for many years."
The production won the Ogle Award for best Fantasy Production of 2006.
In August of 2011, Hollywood producers Mike Medavoy and Doug McKay of Phoenix Pictures announced a new American feature adaptation of Dandelion Wine, destined for release in 2012 or 2013. Bradbury, RGI Productions' husband and wife team Rodion Nahapetov and Natasha Shliapnikoff are working with Medavoy and McKay to produce the adaptation, with Nahapetov penning the script.
astronaut
s named a moon
crater "Dandelion Crater
" for Bradbury's novel.
1957 in literature
The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois
Waukegan, Illinois
Waukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
. The novel developed from the short story "Dandelion Wine" which appeared in the June 1953 issue of Gourmet magazine.
The title refers to a wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
made with dandelion petals and other ingredients, commonly citrus fruit
Citrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
. In the story, dandelion wine, as made by the protagonist's
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
grandfather, serves as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for packing all of the joys of summer into a single bottle.
The main character of the story is Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year-old boy loosely patterned after Bradbury. Most of the book is focused upon the routines of small-town America, and the simple joys of yesterday.
Background and origins
As Bradbury writes in "Just This Side of Byzantium," a 1974 essay used as an introduction to the book, Dandelion Wine is a recreation of a boy's childhood, based upon an intertwining of Bradbury's experiences and his unique imagination.Farewell Summer
Farewell Summer
Farewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
, the official sequel to Dandelion Wine, was published in October 2006. While Farewell Summer is a direct continuation of the plot of Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, a novel with a completely different plot and characters, is often paired with the latter because of their stylistic and thematic similarities. Together, the three novels form a Green Town trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
. A fourth volume, Summer Morning, Summer Night, published in 2008, contains twenty-seven Green Town stories and vignette
Vignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
s, seventeen of which have never been published before.
Plot introduction
Dandelion Wine is a series of short stories loosely connected to summer occurrences, with Douglas and his family as recurring characters. Many of the chapters were first published as individual short stories, the earliest being The Night (1946), with the remainder appearing between 1950 and 1957. For chapters which began as short stories, their original titles are given in parentheses below.Plot summary
Chapter 1 — Spending the night in the cupolaCupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
of his Grandfather's house that gives him a panoramic view of the town, Douglas wakes up early on the first day of summer and performs an elaborate series of actions that coincide with the lightening of the sky and awakening of the townspeople. He does this in such a way that implies magic, thus setting the basis of the novel as collections of life events tinged with a degree of fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
.
Chapter 2 (Illumination)—Douglas goes with his ten-year-old brother Tom and his father to pick fox grape
Vitis labrusca
Vitis labrusca is a species of grapevines belonging to the Vitis genus in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The vines are native to the eastern United States and are the source of many grape cultivars, including Catawba and Concord grapes, and many hybrid grape varieties such as Agawam,...
s. While Tom and his father act like today is just an ordinary day, Douglas senses an inexplicable presence around them. When Tom initiates a friendly rough-and-tumble fight between the two of them, Douglas suddenly realizes what it is: the revelation that he's alive
Personal life
Personal life is the course of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity. It is a common notion in modern existence—although more so in more prosperous parts of the world such as Western Europe and North America...
. He finds it to be a glorious and liberating feeling.
Chapter 3 (Dandelion Wine) — Dandelion wine is presented as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
of summer here, bottled for the winter season of illnesses and wheezing. In Douglas' words: "Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered."
Chapter 4-5 (Summer in the Air) — Douglas discovers that his feet won't move as fast as that of the other boys because his sneakers are worn out. He becomes entranced by a pair of brand-new Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Shoes in a shop window, and thinks on how the need for a "magic" pair of sneakers to run in the green grass is something only boys can understand when his father argues against buying another. The local shoe seller, Mr. Sanderson, is initially resistant to selling the sneakers to Douglas, especially since he doesn't even have enough money to pay for them upfront. Douglas, however, convinces him to try on a pair of his own sneakers, which triggers memories in Mr. Sanderson of when he was a kid and ran like the antelope
Antelope
Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a miscellaneous group within the family Bovidae, encompassing those old-world species that are neither cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, nor goats...
s and gazelle
Gazelle
A gazelle is any of many antelope species in the genus Gazella, or formerly considered to belong to it. Six species are included in two genera, Eudorcas and Nanger, which were formerly considered subgenera...
s. He agrees to let Douglas have the sneakers in return for work done by him in the shop to pay off the bill. The story ends with Douglas speeding away in the distance and Mr. Sanderson picking up his discarded old sneakers.
Chapter 6 — Douglas shows to Tom a tablet that he is using to record his summer in, under two sections labeled "Rites and Ceremonies" and "Discoveries and Revelations." The contents are what would be expected for a kid, including a "revelation" that kids and grown-ups don't get along with each other because they're "separate races and 'never the twain shall meet.'" Tom suggests a revelation of his own; that night is created from "shadows crawling out from under five billion trees."
Chapter 7 (Season of Sitting) — Another ritual of summer is accomplished with the setting up of the porch swing as a place for night-long conversation. Douglas comments on how sitting in the porch swing feels somehow "right" because one would always be comforted by the droning, ceaseless voices of the adults. In keeping up with the fantasy-tinged atmosphere of the novel, the chapter gradually shifts from a realistic beginning, in which the family is setting up the swing, to an almost dreamlike conclusion, in which the grown-ups' voices are personified as drifting on into the future.
Chapter 8-9 (The Happiness Machine) — Leo Auffmann, listening to elderly people's gloomy and fatalistic conversations, insists that they should not dwell on such miserable topics. Douglas and his grandfather, passing by, suggest to Leo that he should make a Happiness Machine. After the conversing people laugh at this apparently absurd idea, Leo becomes determined to do just that. A brief scene of him returning to his family of six children indicates his happiness at home, exemplified when his wife Lena asks, "Something's wrong?" after Leo expresses his desire to build a Happiness Machine.
Chapter 10 (The Night) — Interposed between Leo's story is another tale referring to Douglas' family. It starts out relatively uneventfully, with Tom running to Mrs. Singer's store to get ice cream at nine o'clock on the same night for him and Douglas. However, by nine-thirty, Douglas has not returned, which causes his worried mother to venture to the ravine with Tom. Tom, despite the darkness of the night, feels safe because he is holding his mother's hand and also because he has little understanding of Death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. His sense of security, however, vanishes when he feels his mother's hand tremble and realizes that she is afraid, like him. The ensuing revelation that apparently unfazed grown-ups feel loneliness and pain too unnerves him and makes him aware of the darkness surrounding them. Just before he feels overwhelmed, Douglas and his friends return, breaking the spell of aloneness. Tom later tells Douglas that the ravine would not belong in Leo's Happiness Machine, thus contrasting the pleasures humans wish for with the realities they receive instead.
Chapter 11 (The Happiness Machine–continued) — In a relatively short chapter, Leo sits with his wife Lena on the porch swing in the night. Lena tells him that they don't need a Happiness Machine, but Leo says that he's going to build the Machine for others that would cure all melancholy. He is greeted with only silence, but is too preoccupied with noting the sounds of nature that would belong in the Machine to notice this foreshadowing
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device in which an author indistinctly suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story.-Repetitive designation and Chekhov's gun:...
.
Chapter 12 (The Lawns of Summer) — Another interception of Leo's story which re-focuses on the Spaulding family; Douglas' grandfather begins the day, happily reveling in the sound of the lawn mower running on their lawn, an indicator to him that summer has truly begun. Grandma, however, tells him that Bill Forrester, the man cutting their grass, is planning to plant new grass on their lawn that will only grow to a certain height, thus eliminating the need for lawn mowers. (Note: no such grass actually exists yet in the real world) Horrified at this, Grandpa gives Bill a firm lecture on how little things can matter more than the big ones, especially to experienced people like him. Bill attempts to change his mind, but only convinces Grandpa further of his position when he learns that the new grass will kill off the dandelions.
Grandpa finally pays Bill the cost of the grass flats in return for him not installing the flats in his lawn. He takes a nap and wakes up in the afternoon to find Bill cutting the lawn again, having learned to appreciate the "little things," thanks to Grandpa.
Chapter 13 (The Happiness Machine — continued) — Leo, still obsessed with creating the Happiness Machine, asks Lena if she is "pleased, contented, joyful, [or] delighted." Lena gives a sarcastic reply which offends Leo who is taking his goal seriously, and they get into an argument. The squabble ends only when Lena realizes that she's burned their dinner for the first time in twenty years.
Leo then spends several weeks toiling in his garage to build his Happiness Machine. During this time, the state of his family disintegrates, but Leo is too busy with his invention to pay attention to his wife's warnings.
At last, Leo completes his Happiness Machine. Ironically, the Machine turns out to cause misery instead of the expected bliss, causing both Saul, his son, and Lena to weep after sitting in it. Lena explains to him that a Happiness Machine cannot be built for humans because it would only give them everything they wanted all the time, and produce no fulfillment. Furthermore, it makes them pine for things they shouldn't even be thinking about, such as when a dancing stimulation in the Machine caused her to miss the times when Leo would take her out for dances, hence causing them to feel only unhappiness about their lives. Leo, still disbelieving, decides to take a test run in the Machine himself, but just as he is about to do so, the Machine catches fire, and burns down to the ground.
After the incident, Leo comments to Douglas and his father that he's been a fool because the real Happiness Machine has been right in front of him all along. He shows them his newfound Happiness Machine running in perfect order — his family.
Chapter 14 — As the Spaulding family prepares to shake out the rugs, Douglas and Tom's imaginations turn this chore into a magical discovery, fancying that they see the happenings and neighbors in their town in the stains of one rug. A lavish metaphor at the end of the chapter describes Tom beating the rug so hard that the dust rises up to meet him, another surrealistic chapter ending possibly a reference to the Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
belief that man was created from dust.
Chapter 15-16 (Season of Disbelief) — Mrs. Bentley, a seventy-two year old woman who saves all memorabilia
Souvenir
A souvenir , memento, keepsake or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many tourist traps around the world...
from her past, finds her beliefs challenged by two girls named Alice and Jane, who meet her along with Tom and don't believe her when she says that she was young like them once. Claiming that she's lying, they run away laughing, leaving Mrs. Bentley infuriated.
The next time they meet, Mrs. Bentley shows them some of her relics, including a photograph of her as a child. Alice and Jane say that the objects don't prove anything, since she could have got them from another girl, and Mrs. Bentley's insistence that they will one day be old like her fails to unnerve them. They run away with her "stolen" possessions, further shaking Mrs. Bentley's confidence in the authenticity of her childhood. As she sifts through her memorabilia, she hears the voice of her husband speaking to her, explaining that the items don't really belong to her because they came from the past, not from the present she is living in now. Even affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...
s wouldn't change the fact that she's no longer the self that the saved clothes and pictures were meant for.
Mrs. Bentley finally understands, and discards the tokens of her past the next day with the help of the girls and Tom. From then on, she lives in the present only, confirming the girls' belief that she was never young "in a million trillion years."
In a following chapter, Tom later tells Douglas of his revelation that old people never truly were young, which Douglas writes down in his tablet.
Chapter 17-18 (The Last, the Very Last) — Douglas and Tom are introduced to a living "Time Machine
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
" in the form of Colonel Freeleigh who narrates incredibly vivid descriptions of his personal experiences, including a fatal bullet trick
Bullet catch
The bullet catch is a conjuring illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at him—often in his mouth, sometimes in his hand or caught with other items such as a dinner plate...
performed by Ching Ling Soo, being on the prairie with Pawnee Bill
Buffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
, and witnessing the Battle of Fort Sumter
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On...
. His anecdotes draw the boys themselves into the detailed events, and all agree that the colonel is a true Time Machine.
Similar to the previous story in Chapter 14, there is an expository chapter in which Douglas and Tom record the story in Douglas' tablet and provide both casual and profound commentary on its implications.
Chapter 19 (The Green Machine) — Two elderly women, Miss Fern and Miss Roberts, take refuge in their attic after they accidentally run over Mister Quartermain while riding the Green Machine, believing him to be dead. Huddling together, they recall the time when they bought the Green Machine from a salesman as a noiseless, smooth form of transportation. The first week on the Green Machine went by like a dream, until the accident with Mister Quartermain. Fern and Roberts lament on how they did not stop or at least get help for him, and then resolve to not drive the Green Machine ever again. Later on, they learn that Mister Quartermain did not die after all.
Chapter 20 (The Trolley) — Douglas is horrified to find out that yet another form of transportation for the summer is about to be gone; the trolley
Tram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...
run by Mr. Tridden, which will have its tracks replaced with new ones for a bus. On the last day of operation Mr. Tridden offers the children a free ride, and Douglas, Tom, and a group of children from the neighbourhood climb aboard. During the ride, they comment on how a bus cannot emulate the feel and smell of a trolley, further emphasized by use of gorgeous imagery to describe the sights the boys see while in the trolley. At the end of the line, Mr. Tridden uses an emergency generator to take the streetcar on a track line abandoned for eighteen years that leads to a lake where once the trolley took people to summer festivities. Mr Tridden relates the events of a summer night in 1910 before taking the children home. When the trip concludes, Douglas reflects on how he will always remember the trolley tracks, even after they have been buried in reality. In a humorous reversal, the somber meditation on the vanishing of the trolley is punctuated by a brief snippet of Douglas agreeing to a game of kick the can
Kick the can
Tip the can is a children's game related to tag, hide and seek, and capture the flag which can be played outdoors, with as many as three to a few dozen players...
, abruptly ending the chapter on a lighthearted note.
Chapter 21-22 (Statues — created for novel) — Douglas' best friend John Huff is introduced and described in this chapter as the ideal boy to be friends with. John, however, tells Douglas that his family will be moving tomorrow. In response to Douglas' protests, John comments on how he has suddenly realized that he's taken so many things for granted in his neighborhood that he can't remember most of them, including his parents' faces, and on how he's afraid that Douglas will similarly forget him. Douglas assures him that he has a perfect memory of his face, but ruins his claim when he can't remember that John's eyes are green
Eye color
Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic character and is determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris....
.
Douglas attempts to enjoy his last day with John, but keeps on being reminded of the diminishing amount of time before John's departure. He tries a last-ditch effort to keep John from leaving by "freezing" him for three hours when the children play statues
Statues (game)
Statues is a popular children's game, often played in Australia but with versions throughout the world.-General rules:# A person starts out as the "Curator" and stands at the end of a field. Everyone else playing stands at the far end...
. John refuses to play along and instead begins another round of Statues, in which he "freezes" Douglas instead just before he leaves for good. After he realizes that John is gone for good, Douglas, thinking of how statues stay still compared to humans who can't be controlled, yells out into the distance that he hates John.
Another expository chapter, this one the shortest yet at only one page, has Douglas asking Tom to promise that he will stay with him. He also says that he's concerned about how God runs the world, to which Tom replies simply, "He tries," most likely an accepting remark that life isn't perfect.
Chapter 23-24 — Elmira Brown, a high-strung woman, believes that Clara Goodwater, her rival for the position of president for the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge, is a witch who is causing her numerous small accidents, including tripping over objects in front of her. Elmira accuses Clara of performing dark magic on her to sabotage her chances in the election, using information from her mailman
Mailman
Mailman may refer to:*Mail carrier, a person who delivers mail*Mailman , a 2003 novel by American author J. Robert Lennon.*The Mail Man, a 1993 album by American rapper E-40*GNU Mailman, mailing list software...
husband about a stack of books for magic spells that was sent to her house. Clara, in response, says that the books are for her younger cousin, and claims that Elmira's accidents are caused by her own clumsiness. Unconvinced, Elmira brews a potion for herself to counter Clara's "dark magic," and brings Tom with her to the ladies' meeting as her "charm."
The potion, however, does not stop her from continuing to knock things over, and she in fact begins to feel strangely disoriented as she talks on the platform. Elmira loses the election yet again to Clara, who then draws from her purse a voodoo doll with several tacks embedded in it. A dazed Elmira asks Tom to show her the way to the restroom, but she makes a wrong turn and tumbles down a flight of stairs. Miraculously, she has no broken bones despite heavy bruises, and Clara apologizes to her and even offers a second vote to elect her as president. The story ends with all the women running up the stairs, laughing and crying at the same time. It is left unclear on whether Elmira's fall was caused by mental disorder
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, nausea after drinking her "potion," or real witchcraft by Clara.
Another one-page chapter shows Tom telling Douglas about his weird encounter with the ladies at the lodge, and they comment on how the town is full of magic, illustrating how kids view events differently than grown-ups do.
Chapter 25-26 (The Window) — Colonel Freeleigh, the same "Time Machine" the boys listened to in Chapter 17, has been confined to a hospital for his weakening health. His sole comfort is a phone in his room that he can use to dial the number of an old friend in Mexico City who lays his phone on an open window to allow him to hear the bustling noises outside. When the nurse learns of his phone calls, she tells him that she will give orders to take the phone away to prevent him from overworking his heart further. A desperate Freeleigh, feeling his chest pains worsen, dials his friend's number once more, begging for one last listening to the sounds of the city people. As his friend does so, Freeleigh immerses himself in the activity of Mexico City, thinking of how grateful he is for this reminder that the world is still alive and moving. When Douglas and the other children stop by for a visit, they find Freeleigh dead, still holding the phone. Douglas listens to the phone in time to hear "two thousand miles away, the closing of a window," a metaphor for Freeleigh's death.
In the following chapter, Douglas sits silently as Tom pretends to be a Civil War soldier, pondering on how with Colonel Freeleigh's death, all of his memories of the historical figures died too. Tom, however, fails to share in his brooding, only suggesting that he write his thoughts down in his tablet before resuming his play.
Chapter 27 — July has ended, and thirty-one bottles of dandelion wine have been made. Douglas, remembering his recent string of losses of friends and machines, wonders why each bottle looks identical and not representative of the day it was made on. He says out loud that August will be tedious and uneventful, to which his grandfather attempts to remedy his melancholy with a swig of dandelion wine and some ordered exercises.
Chapter 28-29 (The Swan) — Bill Forrester, with Douglas at his side, orders lime-vanilla ice at the soda fountain. His unusual request catches the attention of ninety-five year old Helen Loomis who invites him to visit her house tomorrow. Bill complies, and he and Helen start a friendly conversation about the appearances people keep up for each other, that soon diverges into Loomis acting as a "Time Machine" similar to Colonel Freeleigh to transport Bill into the pyramids of Egypt. Bill comments on how comfortable he feels talking to her, and Helen replies by reminding him that she's only an old woman. While lounging in his chair, Bill attempts to envision her as being young again; he succeeds for a moment in seeing "the swan," which he unintentionally says out loud, strangely disquieting Helen.
Bill continues to visit Helen every day for two and a half weeks, but only on the last day does he tell her what motivated him to visit her in the first place: a photograph taken of her when she was twenty. He had seen the picture in the newspaper for the town ball and intended to go to the ball to seek the beautiful girl it showed, until someone told him that the picture had been taken a long time ago and had been used by the newspaper every year since then to advertise the ball. Helen replies with an overview of a young man she once knew in her youth who was handsome but wild and reckless; he left her, but when she saw Bill at the fountain that day, she was strongly reminded of him — almost as if he were a reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of her former companion.
Some time later, Bill finds Helen writing a letter addressed to him. Helen explains to him that she will be dead in a few days, and that the letter she is writing will come to him then. When Bill attempts to protest about the lack of time they have had together, Helen says that she believes that they will meet again sometime later — possibly in reincarnated forms. She tells him to marry and live happily, but says that he has to die before the age of fifty in order to ensure that when they are reincarnated, they will be of the correct ages and be able to meet and fall in love with each other.
Two days later, Bill receives the letter. Inside it is a note reading, "A dish of lime-vanilla ice."
The next chapter shifts back to the viewpoint of Douglas, who asks Tom on how come Mr. Forrester and Mrs. Loomis did not get a happy ending
Happy ending
A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the protagonists, their sidekicks, and almost everyone except the villains....
, as in the movies. However, the boys' attentions are quickly distracted from the subject when they arrive at Summer's Ice House, and turn to the legend of the Lonely One in the town, acting as an introduction to the next story.
In the expository chapter, it is revealed in the conversation between Doug, Tom, and Charlie that Lavinia killed the Lonely One by stabbing him with a pair of sewing scissors. Charlie berates Lavinia for killing off their main source of thrills, but Tom convinces him that the actual Lonely One is still alive because the man they took in looked like "a plain, everyday man who wouldn't pull the wings off even so much as a fly," instead of the tall, bulgy-eyed monster they think he should look like. Neither of them listen to Douglas who says that he was at the ravine
Ravine
A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...
at that time and witnessed Lavinia discovering Elizabeth's body, and thus can no longer treat the Lonely One as just an amusingly scary figure.
Chapter 32 (Good-by, Grandma) — Douglas' great-grandma, after countless years of assisting her family, feels that her time is expiring with a growing tiredness. She lies down in her bed amidst the protests of her relatives, waiting for her death. When Douglas asks her who's going to do all the chores she did around the house, she says that they belong to anyone who wants them, and reminds him that she will not truly be dead in his mind. As her family leaves her to rest alone, she returns to the dream she was in before she was born, dying happily and peacefully.
Chapter 33 — Disillusioned by the recent deaths and losses, Douglas, by the light of a multitude of fireflies, writes for a long time on the shortcomings of things and people, associating them mainly with breaking down (machines) or death (people). He seems to be on the verge of a great revelation as he quickly scribbles at the end a summary of the dark side of his summer experience:
"SO IF TROLLEYS AND RUNABOUTS AND FRIENDS AND NEAR FRIENDS CAN GO AWAY FOR A WHILE OR GO AWAY FOREVER, OR RUST, OR FALL APART OR DIE, AND IF PEOPLE CAN BE MURDERED, AND IF SOMEONE LIKE GREAT-GRANDMA, WHO WAS GOING TO LIVE FOREVER, CAN DIE…IF ALL OF THIS IS TRUE…THEN…I, DOUGLAS SPAULDING, SOME DAY, MUST…"
However, the fireflies' light has gone out, so Douglas stops writing and releases the fireflies into the night. He then tries to fall asleep.
Chapter 34 (The Tarot Witch–created for novel) — Douglas takes Tom to a Penny Arcade to show him the mechanical Tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
Witch there. When Tom asks him why he wanted him to see her, Douglas says that he asks too many questions. He then thinks to himself that it's because he was initially elated when he realized that he was alive, before he realized that being alive meant that he must die someday too, no matter how much he wants to prevent it. No longer certain about his life, he wants to take comfort in something that he knows never will go away, i.e. the permanent amusements at the carnival. Douglas gets a typical fortune from the Tarot Witch, but the card she gives Tom is blank. Tom suggests that the Witch might have run out of ink, but Douglas insists that the blank card must have some special meaning. Thinking that she might have written a message in invisible ink
Invisible ink
Invisible ink, also known as security ink, is a substance used for writing, which is invisible either on application or soon thereafter, and which later on can be made visible by some means. Invisible ink is one form of steganography, and it has been used in espionage...
on the back of the card, Douglas runs a match over it. He accidentally burns up the card in the process, but says that he read a French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
message from the Witch, calling for help. He comes to the conclusion that the Witch is really a princess trapped in hot wax that someone poured over her.
Douglas plots to "rescue" the Tarot Witch by overloading a machine with coins so that Mr. Black, the carnival manager, will use them to get drunk. Mr. Black, however, goes crazy and smashes the Witch's glass case. Douglas jumps in to stop him; just as Mr. Black is about to attack him with a knife, he passes out from his drinking. Douglas and Tom confiscate the Witch, planning to free her, but just as they reach the ravine, Mr. Black reappears and flings the Witch into the ravine, to Douglas' horror.
Later on in the day, Douglas and Tom return to where the Tarot Witch is lying. Douglas says to Tom that the Witch is really alive, and that someday he will be able to free her from the wax with magic spells so that the Witch will become just another figurine. As he mentions their fortunes, another blank card falls from her sleeve. Douglas exclaims that it must be written with her thanks and a prediction that they will "live forever."
Chapter 35 (Hotter than Summer) — Douglas comes upon Tom who is counting the times cicada
Cicada
A cicada is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha , in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified...
s buzz every fifteen seconds to measure the temperature. Douglas reads the home thermometer as reading 87°F (31°C), but Tom, after finishing his count, says that it is actually 92° (33°C) Spaulding. Feeling woozy, Douglas begins subconsciously counting to the cicadas' buzzes too.
Chapter 36-38 (Dinner at Dawn) — This story focuses upon Mr. Jonas and his wagon full of discarded objects that he totes around town in the very early morning, allowing people to take what they need from it at no cost; many of them donating some of their old items to the wagon before it moves on forward again.
On a scorchingly hot morning, with the cicadas buzzing louder than normal with the rising temperature, Douglas lies in his bed, burning up with a fever
Fever
Fever is a common medical sign characterized by an elevation of temperature above the normal range of due to an increase in the body temperature regulatory set-point. This increase in set-point triggers increased muscle tone and shivering.As a person's temperature increases, there is, in...
. Tom and his mother attempt to cool him down, to no avail. In his fever, Douglas has hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s of long-lost people and machines walking past, including Mr. Tridden and his trolley, Miss Fern and Roberts riding by on their Green Machine, and Colonel Freeleigh popping up like a clock, all waving good-bye to him, which makes him cry out loud.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Tom tells Mr. Jonas about Douglas' condition and says that he's afraid that he might die. Mr. Jonas gives him a set of wind-chimes to hang by Douglas' window, but they do not make a sound because there is no wind. Mr. Jonas visits the Spaulding residence to see Douglas at seven-thirty, but Douglas' mother says that he is not to be disturbed. By nightfall, Douglas is no better, and his family takes him outside in a cot, in the hope that he will be cooled by a wind.
Finally, at twelve-thirty, Mr. Jonas makes a stop with his wagon where Douglas is sleeping and leaves him two bottles filled with air containing soothing vapor and smells from the tropics and moisture-filled areas, on the condition that he pass this favor on to someone else. The bottles of air appear to work, as Tom finds Douglas breathing the same refreshing air in and out of his nose.
The next morning, the heat and the cicadas finally fade down with the coming of rain, and Douglas is well enough to write in his tablet again of his experience.
Chapter 39 (The Magical Kitchen) — Douglas' grandma is renowned in the household for her divine cooking for the entire family. Aunt Rose, however, threatens this magic when she questions Grandma's methods of cooking, and later persuades Grandma to organize her kitchen, wear glasses, and read from a cookbook while cooking. This systematic cooking that results, however, destroys the uniqueness and magicalness of Grandma's dinners for the rest of the family. In response to this, Grandpa bids Aunt Rose good-bye, but Grandma appears to have lost her touch for cooking.
While the rest of the members are awake in their beds, Douglas sneaks down to the kitchen and restores it back to its original chaos, getting rid of the glasses and the cookbook. The family heads downstairs to find that Grandma has reconnected with her cooking again as it was meant to be, and everyone enjoys a magnificent late dinner. The chapter closes with Douglas thinking on how he repaid Mr. Jonas by passing on his favor.
Chapter 40 (Green Wine for Dreaming–created for novel) — The final chapter of the novel concludes Douglas' summer, as he and Tom spot school supplies advertised for sale in a shop window. The boys reminisce about the events of summer with the aid of the labeled dandelion wine bottles, guaranteeing that they will remember this summer in their hearts. The Spaulding family stores away their porch swing for autumn, as others reverse their summer preparations as the season draws to an end.
The end of the novel echoes the beginning, with Douglas performing his waking-up act in reverse, pretending to switch the lights off and put everyone else to sleep before finally going to sleep himself, ending a very eventful and memorable summer.
Main characters
Douglas Spaulding — The protagonist of the novel, the entire summer is seen mostly through his eyes as a time of joys and sorrows. Douglas is imaginative, fanciful, and occasionally meditative on the state of the world. Most of the time, he aims to have fun as a 12-year old kid, but sometimes he lapses into philosophical brooding on topics, including life and death, more mature topics than what would be expected of his age. Bradbury has stated that Douglas is based on the childhood version of him, and in fact, "Douglas" is Bradbury's actual middle name, while "Spaulding" is his father's middle name.Tom Spaulding — Douglas' younger brother, Tom is the more logical and skeptical one, often questioning his brother's seemingly inexplicable actions. Tom is also somewhat more childish and naïve than Douglas, often failing to understand the seriousness of Douglas' thoughts about his life; nonetheless, he often acts as the voice of reason when Douglas' imagination gets the better of him.
Charlie — A friend of Douglas and Tom, Charlie often hangs around with them. Charlie sometimes comments on a situation or on the behavior of other characters. Other than that, he gets little character development and acts as more of a side character for Douglas and Tom's adventures.
Structure of the novel
Dandelion Wine has been described as the first of Bradbury's nostalgic "autobiographical fantasies," in which he recreates the childhood memories of his hometown, Waukegan, in the form of a lyrical work, with realistic plots and settings touched with fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
to represent the magic and wonders of childhood. Even with the focus on the bright days of summer, Bradbury, in his typical style, briefly explores the horrific
Horror (emotion)
The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic literature and film. Terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience...
side of these events. The primary example is when Douglas' initial joy at realizing he's alive is dampened by the counter-revelation that he will die someday, which parallels his similar gains of knowledge and losses of companions during his summer.
Fear and acceptance
For many of the characters in Dandelion Wine, their contentment depends on the level of acceptance of imperfect aspects of their lives that they cannot change. Douglas, for example, realizes that with the knowledge that he is alive also comes the gloomy fact that he also must die. This depresses him to the point of investing his emotions in a carnival machine (the Tarot Witch) when similar investment in humans seems to bring only misery. Eventually, he decides to continue living after Mr. Jonas cures his fever with bottled fresh air. He sums up his experience with a jar labeled RELISH in his grandma's kitchen. The relish of life is the reason he chose to live; it symbolizes the ecstatic and unexpected pleasures that counterbalance the occasional bitterness of life.Similarly, Mrs. Bentley must learn to give up her fear of old age by accepting that her younger days are permanently gone and that the only thing that matters is the present. Her relinquishment of her childhood relics signifies her liberation from the past and acceptance of her current self.
Technology
Machines, while not the main theme or motif, do convey a side theme on how technology, no matter how well-crafted or intentioned, is no replacement for human interactions with nature and community, a common theme in Bradbury's works.The first example of this is when Grandpa tells Bill that a tidy lawn is no compensation for the loss of the simple pleasure of mowing the grass and also the elimination of dandelions, "weeds" valuable in their own way. While Bill initially sees the invention of grass that stays the same length as a time saver, Grandpa embraces the longer and old-fashioned methods because they let him work with his hands and with nature, something a physical invention cannot emulate.
Leo Auffmann's story expands this point. Leo believes that his Happiness Machine will cure all ills, but the Machine does the reverse because he forgot to factor in our intrinsic human needs. Ironically, Leo’s attempt to let people experience their deepest dreams creates a profound sadness for what they will never have while losing focus on the irreplaceable treasures of the heart. At the end of the story, Leo discovers the true Happiness Machine is his loving family — the ultimate symbol of human intimacy existing in their everyday lives.
The story of the Happiness Machine can also be contrasted with the “Time Machine,” an old man who nonetheless captivates the boys with his memories of historical events in a way no machine (such as the television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
) ever could.
Dandelions
Dandelions are a potent symbol of summer in the novel. While dandelions are only common growths in backyards and viewed by some as weedWeed
A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...
s, the Spauldings treat them as valuable possessions, converting them from simple plants into a medicine for winter. The making of dandelion wine thus reflects the pattern of Douglas' summer; events and things that would be seen as mundane by grown-ups gain magic and appreciation through his unbound imagination and thirst for adventure.
Critical reception
Some critics consider Dandelion Wine to be Bradbury's most personal work. Georges D. Todds of the SF Site said that the novel's power lies in the "emotional attachment" it stirs in readers because it is almost completely nostalgiaNostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
in contrast to Bradbury's usual blend of horror/science fiction and nostalgia. He stated that this trait was what set it apart from his other works:
"Certainly I would tell anyone wanting to know what makes Ray Bradbury the human being he is to read Dandelion Wine, and anyone wanting to know what makes Ray Bradbury the renowned writer he is to read The October Country or The Martian Chronicles."
The novel's heavy reliance on poetical imagery has produced mixed criticism. Many critics say that these are the novel's greatest strengths because the tone matches the spirit of Bradbury's memories and optimistic outlook. John Zuck classified it as "spiritual fiction," paying particular attention to the religious theme of holding on to ephemeral beauty (i.e. the short-lived summer).
Other critics, however, label this style as overwrought and too "feel-good." Alan David Price stated that while "Bradbury is at his most effective when evoking a New World joy and optimism," there are times when his prose becomes overly sentimental and his "gently fantastic style becomes plain tiring." He nonetheless classifies Dandelion Wine as "an engrossing read."
The noted critic and author Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
was also downbeat:
Childhood is Bradbury's one subject, but you will not find real childhood here, Bradbury's least of all. What he has had to say about it has always been expressed obliquely, in symbol and allusion, and always with the tension of the outsider - the ex-child, the lonely one. In giving up this tension, in diving with arms spread into the glutinous pool of sentimentality that has always been waiting for him, Bradbury has renounced the one thing that made him worth reading.
Knight remarks further that "The period is as vague as the place; Bradbury calls it 1928, but it has no feeling of genuine recollection; most of the time it is like second-hand 1910."
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Bradbury wrote a stage adaptation of Dandelion Wine in 1988.The novel was also made into a 1997 Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n film adaptation, titled Vino iz oduvanchikov. Currently, there is no English film adaptation available for the book.
Dandelion Wine was produced as a full-cast radio play by the Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air, in 2006. Ray Bradbury wrote the script from his stage play, and the production was released by Blackstone Audio. The cast included Jerry Robbins as Bill Forrester, William Humphrey as Douglas Spaulding, Rik Pierce as Grandpa, and James McLean as Tom Spaulding. The production was directed by Nancy Curran Willis, with music by Jeffrey Gage, and was produced by Jerry Robbins.
After hearing the production, Ray Bradbury sent a letter to producer Jerry Robbins: "I've just played for the second time your production of Dandelion Wine and it's fabulous. I'm so very proud of it. In fact, it made me weep. In your own way you've told me that I have a chance of part of me living beyond the day that I leave this earth. This production is simply incredible." Phil Nichols of www.Bradburymedia.co.uk said of this recording, "The audio production is extravagant, and benefits from some strong performances and an extensive musical score...one of the most lively and energetic Bradbury productions for many years."
The production won the Ogle Award for best Fantasy Production of 2006.
In August of 2011, Hollywood producers Mike Medavoy and Doug McKay of Phoenix Pictures announced a new American feature adaptation of Dandelion Wine, destined for release in 2012 or 2013. Bradbury, RGI Productions' husband and wife team Rodion Nahapetov and Natasha Shliapnikoff are working with Medavoy and McKay to produce the adaptation, with Nahapetov penning the script.
The novel in popular culture
In 1971, the Apollo 15Apollo 15
Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the American Apollo space program, the fourth to land on the Moon and the eighth successful manned mission. It was the first of what were termed "J missions", long duration stays on the Moon with a greater focus on science than had been possible on previous...
astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s named a moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
crater "Dandelion Crater
Dandelion Crater
Dandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" for Bradbury's novel.