I Know What You Did Last Summer

The teens and the novel’s antagonist are affected in various ways by guilt. After the teens kill the little boy in a car accident, their ideas about home change. Ray leaves the small town in New Mexico and travels around doing odd jobs—Julie notes that the “last card I had from Ray was sent from California” (17). Julie shares his impulse to leave their hometown and works hard in school to get into Smith College. After getting her acceptance letter from the women’s college, Julie thinks, “You’ll be out—free! (5). Ray and Julie associate the trauma of the hit-and-run with a particular geographical location, and their guilt drives them away from this location.

However, as the novel begins, Ray returns to their hometown. This is around the time that the antagonist starts to send threatening mail, and Ray thinks, “It was as though he had known all along, somewhere deep within himself, that this was going to happen. It was why he had come home, and a year ago it was why he had gone away” (42). Ray is ready to take responsibility and believes returning home is part of confronting his guilt. In addition to guilt, the process of leaving home, traveling, and working ages Ray.