Summer of the 17Th Doll

Summer of the 17th Doll Ray Lawler

Quotes supporting themes

Themes and Quotes:

Youth/Maturity: - Roo: “Y’know, a man’s a fool to treat you as a woman. You’re nothin’ but a little girl about twelve years old” (Act One, Scene 1, 91) - Barney: “Righto then, here it is! You’re so blind jealous of young Dowd I reckon you ought to get yourself looked at before it’s too later” (Act Two, Scene 2, Page 71)

Expectations of gender: - Emma: “It ain’t the weather blokes don’t know nothin’” (Act One, Scene 2, Page 28) - Barney: “No, it doesn’t. But the ordinary bloke’s got a way out, he can get married. There’s always been a sorta reason why I never could…..” (Act One, Scene 2, Page 38)

Ideals/Dreams: - Barney: “It takes a special sort of woman to understand a bloke like me. Most of them hear a thing or two and then get a set on yer, treat you as if you was poison” (Act One, Scene 2, Page 40) - Pearl “I meant decent like marriage. That’s different, you said yourself it was.” (Act One, Scene 1, Page 13)

Change/Tradition/Nostalgia: - Roo: “And Nancy – After seventeen years, you couldn’t even hold Nancy” (Act Two, Scene 2, Page 74) - Olive: “It’s different all right. Compared to all the marriages I know, what I go is.. is five months of heaven every year. And it’s the same for them. Seven months they spend up there killin’ themselves in the cane season and then they come down here to live a little” (Act One, Scene 1, Page 13)

Friendship: - Pearl "Oh yes, that's what they remind me of, she says, two eagles flyin' down out of the sun and coming south every year for the mating season."