Theme Of Doe Season

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In the short story Doe Season, by David Michael Kaplan, the nine-year-old protagonist, Andrea, also known as Andy, the tomboy goes out on a hunting trip and endures many different experiences. The theme of coming of age and the struggle most children are forced to experience when faced with the reality of having to grow up and leave childhood behind is presented in this story. Many readers of this story only see a girl going hunting with her father, his friend Charlie, and son Mac, because she wants to be one of the guys. An important aspect of the story that is often overlooked is that Andy is going hunting because she doesn't want to become a woman because she is afraid of the changes that will occur in her body. As Andy and the rest of the …show more content…

When her father and the others began to gut the deer, Andy feels terrible and starts running away. The men began calling out to her, “Charlie Spoon and Mac and her father—crying Andy, Andy (but that wasn’t her name, she would no longer be called that)" (397). She is running away Andy the tomboy and is running towards Andrea the mature woman. At that moment she realizes the truth about herself. She no longer wants to be Andy, she wants to be herself, Andrea. She ran just as she ran away from her mother in the ocean. She began to understand that growing up and becoming a woman is unavoidable. The theme of the story is the idea that to mature, a child must reconcile life with the reality of death. "While all around her roared the mocking of the terrible, now inevitable sea" (397). She is no longer interested in hunting, a male activity, she is now disgusted by it. She's accepting towards the changes and can now tolerate the "ocean" or the idea of womanhood. In the short story, Doe Season. Andy shows that she doesn't want to face the unenviable step into womanhood and tries to blend in with the men. This story also shows the growth and change of Andy throughout the story, and how Andy is stepping into the adult world of sexuality and death. In the end, the hesitant Andy is maturing into the woman, Andrea. She seems to overcome her uncertainty about being a girl and no longer responds to her boyish nickname because it is not her real name. She just wants to be herself and is finally accepting the changes that will soon occur with her

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