Kaplan’s ”Doe Season” is about self-discovery and acceptance.
Doe Season’s protagonist is a nine-year old girl named Andrea. ‘Doe Season’ is a story of Andrea who does want to be a woman. She believes the man’s world is more wonderful. She dreads the changes she needs to go through to become a woman. Her father supports her desire by calling her Andy and encourages her to do manly things. Andy desires to be a part of man’s world but somehow in the end, she realizes she cannot escape reality that she is a female and she should not try to be someone she is not.
In “Doe Season”, Andrea wants to become accepted in the all-male group she hangs out with. Yet, she feels alienated and lonely because she seems to be the odd one out in the group. This alienation is noticeable at the start of the story when she expresses her dislike for Mac. Mac teases and pulls pranks on her. She believes Mac is stupid. This shows Andrea’s feminine side which she tries hard to conceal.
Another instance in “Doe Season” when Andrea feels alienated was the men are talking about deer. She comments that she sees a deer behind their house. Charlie Spoon reasons it is because deer instinctively know when the hunting season is. Then they all laugh about which makes Andrea confused. The whole conversation about deer makes her feel out of place.
The primary concept of the story revolves around Andrea’s relationship with his father. Andy wants to please her father. Her father takes her to a hunting trip to test if she can be a part of the man’s world. Her father asks her to shoot a deer and then made her watch as he and Charlie Spoon gut the deer. At the cost of displeasing her father, Andy could not deny the fact that she has to remain true to her identity. She chooses to be true to herself in the end as symbolized by running away from the assembly of men gutting the deer.
In “Doe Season”, there are a number of symbolisms such as the sea and the forest. When Andy talks of the sea and how it reminds her of mother’s love for it, she admits hating it which is one clue that she does not want to be associated with femininity of any kind. The sea symbolizes womanhood and the forest symbolizes manhood. Andy expresses extreme dislike for the sea and an interest of the woods. She never really likes the woods per se but is fascinated by it.
To show the contrast of how she feels about the sea and the forest, she sees the forest as deep and immense, while she refers to the sea as huge and empty. This implies that Andy sees the man’s world as a impressive and fascinating while that of a woman’s is meaningless and empty.
Doe Season ends with Andy watching “her father’s knife sliced thickly from chest to bell to crotch” (354). When Andy’s father begins to gut the deer, Andy has an epiphany. She realizes that, no matter how much she tries, she cannot become part of the male society. She then runs away from everyone. This gesture of turning her back and fleeing from her male companions shows that she finally accepts the fact that she is different from men. Unbeknownst to her, the transformation within her is already complete. Then she listens to the sound of the wind which aptly reminds her of the “terrible, now inevitable sea” (354). The sea now becomes inevitable, owing to the fact the she recognizes she can no longer deny her true identity. She turns from the woods which suddenly became strange to her, to the calling ocean, heeding her real destiny- that of becoming a woman.
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