Show:
Characters
Plot Points
Themes and Ideas
Quotes and Analysis
Context and Background
100

A barmaid who eagerly awaits the layoff season

Olive

100

The city where the play is set.

Carlton

100

Bubba represents

Changing and time moving forward

100

“Every year it’s the same, and every year it’s different.” Discuss the significance of this quote.

Highlights how there is predictability and unpredictability in the routines that exist in the lives of the characters. It is both comforting and exciting. 

100

The author of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

Ray Lawler

200

The sugar-cane cutter who brings Olive a kewpie doll every year.

Roo

200

The reason why Roo and Barney come to Melbourne every year.

The layoff season

200

Dust represents 

The decay that comes with stagnation and remaining still
200

“The layoff season was like a dream.” Analyze how this quote reflects Olive’s perspective.

Olive never wants the layoff season routine to end. She uses the simile to highlight its positives, but also makes a comment on the artificial nature of dreams. 

200

The year the play was first performed.

1955

300

Olive’s friend who replaces Nancy in the layoff season.

Pearl

300

The event that causes tension between Roo and Barney.

Barney doesn't follow Roo when he walked off the cane fields

300
The dolls represent

The seventeen years Roo and Olive have been together

300

Identify the significance of Pearl's costuming in the opening scene. 

Highlights her desire to re-gain social status and be perceived as respectable and high-class.

300

The social/historical significance of the time the play is set.

Post WWII - changing social norms and values.

400

The character who has been observing Olive and Nancy’s lifestyle since childhood.

Bubba (Kathy)

400

The gift Roo brings Olive every year.

A Kewpie Doll

400

Pathetic fallacy is used to

Highlight the characters emotions through the weather.

400

“It’s not the same anymore, Olive.” Discuss how this quote encapsulates the play’s central conflict.

Highlights the way that we must accept change in our lives, even when we don't want to. 

400
State the play is set in

Victoria

500

Olive’s mother, who is cynical but wise.

Emma

500

The job Roo is forced to take after a bad season.

Paint factory worker

500
Roo smashes the seventeenth doll because
It represents the ending of their 17 year relationship
500

“Seventeen years of layoff seasons, and what have we got to show for it?” Analyze the character’s realization in this quote.

Realisation that everything that was once valued is gone and there is nothing official or lasting to show for it. 
500

The significance of the play in Australian culture

It was one of the first texts to highlight a uniquely Australian context, not a British or American one.