“An old double-barreled Winchester Model 21” (symbol)
“An old double-barreled Winchester Model 21” is a symbol of hard times. Mrs. Dowdel is not that kind of a person who is afraid of anything. She knows that she can protect herself and her husband’s “old double-barreled Winchester Model 21” always helps her to prove her point when a situation calls for it. Everybody is aware of her “trigger” finger to know better than to mess with her.
Herbert Hoover (allegory)
Herbert Hoover is allegory of “hard times,” “a Great Depression.” It “swept over the nation,” and even the kids, Joey and Mary Alice, could see that. The whole country “couldn’t seem to throw it off,” “it was still Hoovering over” all of them. They could see “hard times from the window of the Wabash Blue Bird.” The “freight” trains were loaded down “with men trying to get from one part of the country to another, looking for work and something to eat.”
Coming of age (Motif)
This novel in stories explores a theme growing up. It was “always August” when Joe and Mary Alice “spent a week” with their grandma. He was “Joey then, not Joe” and his sister was “Mary Alice.” In their “first visits” they were still “just kids,” so they could hardly see a town “because of Grandma.” She “was so big, and her town was so small. “As the years went by,” Mary Alice and Joey “grew up,” and though Grandma never changed, they’d “seem to see a different woman every summer.”
