That Summer

Diana’s assault, the event around which the novel coheres, forces each character to decide whether they believe justice or revenge to be appropriate responses to sexual violence. To each character, justice means something different. For the Shoemaker men, neither revenge nor justice seem appropriate, as they believe that men who have committed indiscretions in the past should not necessarily have to suffer the consequences for them later in life. Vernon unashamedly declares that men will do bad things and perpetrate violence but believes that it is in their nature and therefore requires no punishment. Hal, the focus of the novel’s balance of justice and revenge, represents Vernon’s “good man” who has made a mistake, and believes that there should be ways to “make amends” (330). However, he never explicitly expresses regret for his actions, instead participating in a different kind of abuse of Daisy, and this ongoing behavior belies the simplistic idea that he is a good man once who did a bad thing. By contrast, Danny does enact a personal form of repentance and makes indirect reparations by doing good deeds and community service. He takes Hal’s words, “Go forth and sin no more” (396), to heart in a way that Hal himself does not.