Amy & David Character Analysis

As people get older some change and some stay the same. In "And Summer Is Gone", a short story by Susie Kretschmer, David and Amy have been friends since David moved to her town when he was 12. They are very different. David is calm, introvert, artistic and slightly mundane and she is shallow, insecure, popular,and easily subject to peer pressure. Throughout the story David stays the same, yet the only quality about Amy that stays the same is popular.

At the age of 12 David enjoys painting and continues to do so throughout the years. He won the local art exhibit "for the second year in a row" (20). Throughout school he excels in academics and plans a future by "dreaming of college" (19). He remains secluded and does his own thing, which makes him happy. This boy is a loner but he doesn't mind because he makes friends when he wants to, such as the guys from his swim team he'd "met freshman year" (19).As a child David paints about Aztecs and Mayans; he still does this, and he wins art exhibitions with the paintings. David is a calm person and doesn't let things get to him. When Amy leaves he says "I cried within" (27) and he met her eyes with a "level calm stare" (23).

When Amy was 12 she's outgoing, smart, and adventurous. Now she has conformed to the popular group. She continued to make friends and "in August she went away to camp" (15). Whereas David doesn't date she would "date 10 guys a month" (20). She unhesitatingly will do things to fit in. When at the art exhibition with her friends she willfully chimes in by saying "yeah, I know" (26) after her friends bash the art piece David had painted. Amy's grades slip, she used to get A's but now "she [is] getting B's and C's" (18).

Amy has always been popular and always will be, but everything else about her has changed. The child she was is now gone. David has been artistic and true to himself and always will be "for [he] has kept who [he] is." (27). There are people who will change and people who will stay the same and true to themselves, some people can stay friends through this and some people cannot. Sadly for David and Amy this is the case.