42 pages • 1 hour read
Richard PeckA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Rosie is the novel’s protagonist and its narrator. She narrates the story in the past tense from later in life, allowing the narrative to comment on events and her younger self from a distance, and to prefigure the future.
Rosie is nearly 14. She describes herself as red-haired, freckled, and spunky, although she admits to being timid at times, and the bustling world’s fair is overwhelming for her at first. She tries to restrain her spunky spirit while in Chicago and her impetuous behavior—while well-intentioned—leads to scrapes, such as when she introduces her aunt to the city’s leading society lady. The novel follows Rosie’s character development as a coming-of-age story and the young-adult lessons of the three major themes are mostly established through her character’s narrative arc.
Lottie is Rosie’s sister. At 17, she is pretty and strong-minded. At home, she helps her mother around the farm and is being courted by a local hired man named Everett. Before the sisters go to Chicago, Lottie’s situation is an indication of the life Rosie can expect as she gets older—little education, and early marriage, and domestic duties.
In Chicago, Lottie shows herself to be confident and astute, demonstrating that she is ready to enter adult life. It is Lottie who insists that Aunt Euterpe stop wearing her widow’s weeds. She also talks back to Mrs. O’Shay, Euterpe’s rude, lazy cook, and is responsible for the departure of her aunt’s cook as well as her maid. She is more instrumental than all the other characters in bringing about Euterpe’s entrance into society. Lottie provides a contrast to Rosie as she is older, more sophisticated and circumspect. She demonstrates a keen instinct for social management when she keeps Everett’s identity a secret from the entire family, letting them think the worst of him. This provides the novel with one of its key surprises, and a core lesson about the dangers of snobbery.
Granddad is a subversive and disruptive character in the structure of the book, although his character is genial and amusing. His overt role is to provide surprise and humor. At first, he appears to represent the unsophistication of rural life, but his influence on the novel’s plot reveals and character developments show him to be a highly significant character. His narrative arc is a warning against the dangers of writing others off too soon. Granddad provides the two biggest surprises in the novel, when he appears on the train car and when he turns out to be a friend of Buffalo Bill’s. Granddad has humility and confidence in himself, happy to let other people think that they like about him, as shown by his ability to keep his renown and connections quiet until they become relevant.
Granddad is towards the end of a full and varied life, revealed gradually through the novel. His life experiences, as one of early settlers of Illinois and a soldier, represent the shared history of American culture. In his old age, he likes to entertain strangers with stories about this history, often with mischievous details. He is gleefully unrestrained and delights in puncturing the pretensions of his daughter, Euterpe. He also enjoys the fun and freedoms of the fair, unrestrained by the constraints his female relatives are bound by.
Granddad has died by the novel’s final chapter, written as Rosie looks back at her trip to the fair from some future date. However, she says that he “lives on” in their hearts, emphasizing the role he has played in the story of their youth.
Buster, at seven, is an annoying little brother who likes to spy on and tease his older sisters. He worships Granddad and, to Rosie’s despair, patterns his manners on his grandfather’s. He hates having to dress up for the fair and, as the train for Chicago takes off, throws his new hat out the door. Buster’s interest in filmmaking begins when he first sees moving pictures at the fair, and he grows up to become a famous director of Westerns. As seen through Rosie’s narrative, Buster is a flat character who develops very little through the story. His function is to provide a foil to the girls and create humor based on his youth and lack of understanding.
Aunt Euterpe is a significant character in the novel; her character’s development parallels Rosie’s own and traces the narrative arc. She also provides a living example of the choices and attitudes available to the girl characters, supporting the novel as a coming-of-age narrative. Euterpe is timid, overly refined, and lonely at the story’s start. She is described as wan and bespectacled, and according to her sister, she is 44. She has been widowed for four years but still dresses in mourning clothes, including several black veils. She was formerly Mr. Fleischacker’s secretary, and after she married him, she was cut by all the friends of his first wife. For this reason, although she is very wealthy and longs to be part of Chicago society, she has no friends in the city when the children meet her. She is afraid of her own servants, particularly her cook.
The arrival of her nieces, nephew, and father seems like a disaster to Euterpe as their country ways clash with her sense of refinement. They turn out to be a blessing in disguise, however, as Lottie’s eventual marriage to Everett paves the way for her entrance into society.
By Richard Peck