Characters
She is Kelly's friend who invites her to Grayling Island and is having an affair with a much older man
Buffy St. John
Kelly's desire to be attractive, moral, and "chosen" places her into this common literary classification of a female character.
The "Good Girl" Archetype?
As the car sinks, the Senator is described as placing his foot on Kelly's head in his desperate effort to escape.
The Senator's Action using Kelly to lever himself out
The category or length of the work, which keeps the focus tight on the single, tragic event and the protagonist's final moments.
Novella
Oates changed the setting of the fictional accident from the real Massachusetts island to this U.S. state.
Maine
He is the older lawyer and lover of Buffy St. John who hosts the fateful Fourth of July party.
Ray Annick
This key dynamic is what initially attracts Kelly to the Senator and is the very thing he violates by leaving her to drown.
Power and Trust
The type of vehicle (implied to be an import) in which the Senator and Kelly are riding.
Toyota
These passages in the text often indicate a transition to Kelly's internal, hallucinatory, or frantic thoughts while trapped in the car.
The Italics
The Massachusetts island where the real-life incident took place.
Chappaquiddick
This powerful, unnamed political figure is the driver of the car and the source of Kelly's fatal attraction. Who is this
The Senator
The literal and symbolic element representing the final, suffocating fate that consumes Kelly
The Black Water
The holiday during which the party and the fatal drive take place.
The Fourth of July
The primary technique Oates uses to convey Kelly's thoughts, hopes, and hallucinations as she is dying.
Stream-of-Consciousness?
The famous U.S. Senator on whom Oates's The Senator is a fictionalized version.
Ted Kennedy
Oates explores how American culture associates charismatic male figures and political office with a sense of entitlement and invulnerability.
Political Mythology
Kelly imagines this place as a black, mucky, swampy marsh rather than an open ocean or river.
The Black Water Itself
The chilling line repeated throughout the story, reminding the reader of the inevitable conclusion.
As the black water filled her lungs, and she died
The book's setting, which is in the 1980s during the presidency differentiating it from the actual 1969 incident.
The 1980s Setting
This 26-year-old protagonist is drowning and reliving her past in the submerged car
Kelly Kelleher
This major thematic contrast is represented by Kelly's idealized view of the Senator versus his immediate, careless abandonment of her.
Innocence and Corruption
The part of the car that is submerged first and where Kelly is trapped.
The Passenger Side?
The literary device of interrupting the present with scenes from the future (such as Kelly's drowning) or the past (her childhood).
Prolepsis
The young woman who drowned in the 1969 incident that serves as the basis for Kelly Kelleher's character.
Mary Jo Kopechne