"Dying is a part of living -- a natural progression. Should I ignore the natural order of my life, twist it to MY liking and thereby become something I was not meant to be?" Charles de Lint, The Little Country. Dandelion Wine is the story of the awakening of a young boy. Harold Bloom, being impressed with the novel's "evocative tone" called it "a nostalgic paean to childhood innocence and imagination" (Mass 65). In Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, the curiosity of aging and dying is a result of an educational but magical summer in the year 1928. Many critics insist that much of the story, Dandelion Wine is autobiographical (Hughs). To understand the life of Bradbury the most overtly autobiographical book is Dandelion Wine. The story depicts that of Bradbury's youth, a sensation of helplessness, immersion in life, both ecstatic and fearful. It all beins with Bradbury's strange recollection of his own birth (Mogen 1). Douglas Spaulding is the protagonist of the novel. He is a twelve year old boy living in a small, fictional neighborhood by the name of Green Town. Throughout the story Doug notices many patterns and learns of reality. To help him decifer both new and old habits, Doug keeps a journal, dividing the summer into two parts. The headings that Doug uses are "Discoveries and Revalations" and "Rites and Ceremonies". "Discoveries and Revalations" include events that are old, yet familiar such as bottling dandelion wine. Every summer the dandelions in Green town grow in abundance and each year the Spaulding children pick as many as possible, so that they may be harvested. The dandelions are harvested to make the dandelion wine. "Every time you bottle it, you got a whole chunk of 1928 put away, safe." (Bradbury 27). Under the "Rites and Ceremonies" passage Doug writes of the many firsts of his summer. These "firsts" include things such as the first time running barefoot in the grass during the summer, the first misquito, the first watermelon, and the first harvest. "Those are the things we do over and over and over and never think." (Bradbury 27). According to Robin Anne Reid, Bradbury begins to discuss the importance of metaphors throughout the intoduction. The three pressings (the beginning, the middle, and the end) symbolize the three months of the summer (Reid 70). Through a series of events, Doug and his brother Tom also infer that adults and children are different in many ways, learns of stasis and change, and learn of life virsus death. "Its [Dandelion Wine ] cause and effect relationship is a spontaneous one, for which A leads to B, and Z again to A." (Bradford 69). Although the plot line is not quite chronological, Reid states that in a sense the pace is completely realistic (Reid 65). In Dandelion Wine, as Ray Bradbury exemplifies the differences between living in the past and embracing the future, he accurately resolves the dilema between stasis and change.
Douglas Spaulding writes about the many differences between children and adults. This is a "truth central" not only in Dandelion Wine but it is also Bradbury's general view of children (Bloom 75). "The reason why grown ups and kids fight is because they belong to separate races. Look at them, different from us. Look at us, different from them. Separate races and never the twain shall meet." (Bradbury 27). After speaking with Tom about his journal, Doug explained that adults and children are like separate races and neither one would ever understand the other. In the novel the character Mrs.Bently is introduced to help futher the knowledge of the neighborhood children. When she tells them her name is Helen, the kids are surprised that she even has a first name, being an adult. Mrs. Bentley tells the children that even though she is currently seventy-two, she feels just as lively as she did at their age. The multiple children cannot believe their ears. Mrs. Bentley was once a young girl? They continue to dispute her and are positive that she is and always has been elderly. Angry, Mrs. Bently tells the children to leave and later that evening she sees them again. She motions them over and shows the kids her belongings that she possessed as a young girl. The possessions include a comb, a ring, as well as a picture of herslef. The children still doubt this and eventually Mrs. Bentley convinces herself that the kids are right, she is a seventy-two year old women and always has been. The encounters of many kids are the best evidence of the time barriers between two different races, adults and children in Dandelion Wine. For example, Mrs. Bentley is "dislocated" in time and has not accepted that time is and will forever be irredeemable (Bloom 80). The children around town are also native to the nearby ravine. Bradbury denies the reader the exact details of the ravine and instead shows its densities. His dramatic mode for enhancing this demention (occupied by the children) is obscurity (Bloom 86). Bradbury does not include a set discription of the ravine which leaves the outlook to the imagination of each individual reader. Although the ravine was nearby, Mrs. Spaulding detested when the kids traveled through it. One summer night when Doug was late coming home, Mrs. Spaulding took Tom and began to look for Doug near the ravine. As they approached the ravine Tom could feel his mother's grasp on his own hand tightening. "He felt the tremble... Why? But she was bigger, stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn't she? Did she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of the darkness, the crouching malignancy down below?" (Bradbury 42). This shows the expectations that most children have for significant or superior adults in their lives. Bradbury is not writing about conquest but rather about real concerns, the soul, and its moral imagination. Douglas grasps the concept that he is alive and the reader gets a glimpse at the mystery of the soul. When Doug realizes that life is its own ending and only the soul can point this out, he does not know it but in fact he is well on his way to becoming an adult (Kirk 68). Adulthood changesa person's outlook and impairs one to embrace the world with positve and clear senses. Age can stop or even close the "channels" between nature and man. Bradbury hints that like his son Douglas, Mr. Spaulding was once like his son (Bloom 79). This shows the difference between childhood (stasis) and adulthood (change).
In Dandelion Wine, the dilema is created by the past virsus the future and by stasis virsus change. Bradbury uses the protagonist's experiences to dramatize the set of philosophical and psychological conflicts (Stupple 70). The novel Dandelion Wine focuses on stasis and on change. Towards the beginning of the novel, Bill Forrester buys manufactured grass, grass that will not grow past a certain point. When Doug's granfather hears about this new grass he is outraged and cannot figure out why anyone would do such a thing. He goes on to lecture Bill, as if Bill was only a child, telling him that this was the problem with his generation. He explains to Bill that Bill's generation takes the small enjoyable things, such as mowing the lawn for granted. Just as it is hard for the elderly to let go of old habits, it is difficult for children to adapt to new ways of life. As a child, growing up is enevitable, as is change. Because the important event is Doug's revelation, the effectiveness depends on Ray Bradbury to evoke his state of awareness. The style focuses on sensory details yet interprets boundaries and the self, creating a halluinary effect (Mogen 43). Throughout the story Doug begins to mature gradually. Just like any young boy in modern society Doug has to accept new changes and embrace reality. Dandelion Wine does an excellent job of showing the initiation and maturation of a man in traditional patriachal culture (Reid 72). As Doug grows, his ten year old brother provides a foil for him. Although Tom has not yet had to face many of the obstacles Doug has had to face, his opinion provides a balance for Doug. It provides a balance because Doug now has the privelage of seeing from an adult's point of view without losing a childlike perspective. The two boys continue to build off one another, evening out the levels of maturity and imaturity. Douglas envies Tom's positive outlook on life but still cannot control his hatred towards many different changes. The changes that adolescence brings scares Doug and he has a hard time accepting what is, and an even more difficult time letting go of what was. Once Doug discovers that he is "alive" he can't help fearing death and all that it brings with it. "As Marvin E. Mengding points out in 'Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine: Themes, sources and style,' this novel is a part of American tradition of initiation stories in which a young protagonist matures through 'rites of passage', involving self discovery."(Reid 69).
For Bradbury, life is here and now. It is every action and one must find their own happiness and reality (Kirk 68). Prominent themes supporting Bradbury's thesis include fear of death, nostalgia, and accepting reality. Each theme is universal and literary rather than comlpletely science fictional (Reid, 64). Bradbury's view of life shows the central outlook pertaining to the central theme of Dandelion Wine. Life and death is a difficult concept to grasp at any age, but for a child it can be life altering. Bradbury uses fantasy as a way of coping with the "monster death." Can anyone completely accept death as an unexplainable force? (Bradford 68) Not only does doug have to deal with the death of multiple deaths around him in his neighborhood, he also has to deal with the fact that someday that he, too, will die. Doug believes that he can depend on nothing because things often do not work. He also believes that he cannot believe in people either because peopl die or go away (Reid 65). For example, Doug's best friend John Huff must move away. John is the best athlete among all of the boys and he knows everything that a twelve year old boy thought it pressing to know. John believes that once he leaves Green Town everything he once new would be but a forgotten memory. A major part of the novel is discovering one's mortality. This revelation often switches from childhood to adolescence. When Doug realizes his mortality, he begins to grow and to evolve (Reid 69). Douglas possesses a deep knowledge of life, and this is exactly why it's so difficult for him to come to terms with the idea of death. When he finally comes to terms with death is scared into a terrible fever. Although many try to help him no one is successful. The "junkman", Mr. Jonas, feels abliged to help. He has two bottles of winter air, to be tasted on a day of summer when the heat was too hot and unbarable. The winter air breaks Doug's fever. The break in Doug's fever symbolizes the new acceptance of mortality through his eyes. Doug's rite of passage starts at the epiphany in the beginning of when he discovers mortality. With this discovery Dandelion Wine presents a series of events that teach Doug the way of life. At one point Doug decides just to let go and die but Mr. Jonas helps him decide to live. This is how Ray Bradbury progresses the novel and exemplifies the differences between stasis and change (Reid 70).
Dandelion Wine becomes a symbol of time. It also creates the image that processes Bradbury's purpose in which he created the novel (Reid 70). Ray Bradbury successfully exemplifies the differences between adulthood and adolescence, stasis and change, and even life and death. Bradbury does this by plotting the story out thouroughly and writing for the reader. Dandelion Wine is easily relatable, timeless, and also a pleasure to read. He proves his novels by reaching through senses and creating real life. To write a successful fantasy the real world must be incorporated, only then can the mind feel and understand the journey (Bradford 69). Bradbury incorporated the real world in many ways helping the reader to understand and connect with the novel and with its characters. Without doing this, a novel would have less importance and be easily be forgotten. Through metaphhor, Bradbury connects the experience of youth to a mature vision of making this universe a home (Mogen 43-44). Doug's character helps the reader relate to his situation and help the audience connect with Green Town. Though Bradbury's novels and metaphors may differ, the conflict is ultimately between human vitality and machine or between stulification of conformity and capacity of words (McNelly 71). Bradbury's Dandelion Wine is an experience that has no need to be looked back upon or analyzed. This critique shows what happens when reviewing Bradbury; its beauty "enslaves" the reviewer. It is such a great work of liturature, he almost seems to cheat (Bradford, 69). In 1971, an Apollo astronaut named a crater "Dandelion Crater" after Bradbury's Dandelion Wine (Mass 69) and Dandelion Wine is known to get exceptional reviews. Ina Hughs, of Knoxville News Sentinel states, "What a wonderful story it was, and if you never understood Albert Einstein's other famous theory-that imagination is more important than knowledge- this book just might make it abundantly clear" (Hughs). Not to mention Bradbury has achieved many awards including the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to the American Letters, the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, and many others. Bradbury was also inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (Mass 80). Science Fiction may have attracted young people to Bradbury, but he has led them to something much better: mythopoeic liturature and nomative truth acquired through wonder (Kirk 69).
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