The Production of Space in Colson Whitehead’s “Sag Harbor” and Edith Wharton’s “Summer”

Abstract

At first glance, Edith Wharton’s 1917 novella Summer and Colson Whitehead’s 2009 novel Sag Harbor do not have much in common. Not only were they written almost a century apart, but the protagonist of Wharton’s text is a young woman while the protagonist of Whitehead’s book is a young man. Additionally, Summer takes place in a fictional New England countryside village, whereas the setting of Sag Harbor is the Long Island coastal town that lends the text its name. However, they both take place during a summer and it is worth remembering that the protagonists of both texts are teenagers and close in age: Summer’s Charity Royall is eighteen and Sag Harbor’s Benji Cooper is fifteen. So what arises of the unlikely pairing and analysis of these two texts? Wharton’s novella has been analyzed in detail from a gender studies perspective and Whitehead’s novel has been scrutinized for its racial significance. However, up until now, no objective and detailed geocritical cartography has been undertaken in either of these texts. Location is of the utmost importance, and two opposite perspectives are presented in the opening chapters of either text respectively. This article draws on space conception theories and establish how they apply to both Summer and Sag Harbor – thus also delineating their tenuous similarities. Eventually, a better understanding of both texts can be achieved and new critical perspective can be attained.