I Know What You Did Last Summer

I Know What You Did Last Summer has a limited third-person narrator and switches between points of view. Duncan’s narrator offers descriptions of the characters with their names and third-person pronouns (he/she/they) but also includes their thoughts. Julie is the novel’s protagonist because more chapters are devoted to her point of view than any other character, including the first and last chapters. Throughout the novel, the narrator focuses on the point of view of the other teenagers—Barry, Helen, and Ray—and their parents.

One theme introduced in this section is Gender Roles, informed by feminist thought. On the first page, the narrator describes a “letter, long and white and official” (1) and, on the second page, reveals that it is Julie’s acceptance letter from Smith. Smith is a historic women’s college, one of the Seven Sisters on the East Coast, which were founded as women-only educational institutions to mirror the male-dominated Ivy League schools. One reason women seek out women’s colleges rather than co-ed institutions is to avoid sexism. Barry is an example of a sexist character in that he characterizes women as inherently “irrational.” He thinks, “I’m as uptight as those crazy girls” (21) when he’s worried he is being followed after seeing Julie’s threatening note from the antagonist. Barry also finds value in dating Helen because she is on TV in a role she earned through a beauty contest.

The motif of print media is seen in the two different letters. While Julie’s acceptance letter foregrounds Gender Roles in the novel, the titular note develops the theme of The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. The phrase “I know what you did last summer” is “hand-lettered in stark black print” (1) on lined notebook paper. Ironically, the envelope holding the message is the “size of a party invitation” (8). The author of this note is the antagonist, and his dual identity is not revealed until the novel’s end. The reader later learns that the handwriting belongs to a man that Julie is dating, Bud, who also is Helen’s new neighbor going by the name of Collie (who is not introduced until the next section).

Early clues to the antagonist’s identity can be found in this first section. For instance, Julie feels uneasy about Bud, the man she recently began dating before the novel’s opening. She thinks about breaking things off with him because it “would be good for him to realize that this relationship wasn’t going to go anywhere” (6). Her reason for dating Bud is tied to The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. She broke up with Ray over the guilt of a car accident they were involved in that killed a little boy. This event from the previous summer traumatized Julie, leading her to casually date a man who tries to kill her at the novel’s end.

The motif of eyes further develops the theme of The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. Early on, Julie notes how Ray and Bud have different colored eyes. She doesn’t suspect Ray is the antagonist because “No stranger could ever look at her through Ray’s green eyes” (30). Eyes come up again when the antagonist stares at Barry, who was driving during the accident. Barry “kept having the uneasy feeling that there was a pair of eyes boring into his back” (22). It is later revealed that the eyes belong to Bud (aka Collie). Bud, like the teens, experiences The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. Rather than having trauma from killing a boy in a car accident, Bud has PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from the war. In the original edition of the novel, it was the Vietnam War, but in the revised edition—which came out after the movie adaptation—it is the Iraq War. This trauma turns him into someone who tries to kill the teens who hit his half-brother on a bicycle with a car.

The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter that the teens experience over their hit-and-run accident include physical and psychological changes. In addition to the psychological effect of dating the wrong guy, Julie looks different. She avoided Barry for almost a year after the accident, and when he sees her for the first time, he notes that her “glow seemed to have faded” (15). Before the accident, Julie was much more outgoing and friendly, and her personality illuminated her features. Similarly, when Julie sees Ray after many years apart, she notes that he “had changed tremendously since she had last seen him” (25). Trauma ages the teens, making them look older and less vivacious.

Another central theme introduced here is Family and Identity Formation. Just as Bud is shaped by his experiences in the war, the teens form their identities in relation to and sometimes in opposition to their parents. Parents determine the teens’ social classes and help form their personalities through parenting techniques. Julie’s mother, Mrs. James, is uncannily observant: “She has this funny way of knowing more than you ever tell her” (4), Julie thinks. This quality ends up saving Julie’s life at the end of the novel. It also creates a closeness between her and her mother.

On the other hand, Barry and his mother have an adversarial relationship. When Barry wishes he could live in the same apartment building as Helen, he notes how “it wasn’t his mother’s idea of something the old man should finance” (13-14). Julie and Barry are from the same social class—Julie’s mother is an alumna from Smith and can afford the expensive tuition there, and Barry’s father pays for his room and board at the local university. Yet, Barry’s mother keeps him from attending a university that is not local, unlike Mrs. James’s encouragement of Julie to attend Smith, located across the country. Furthermore, Barry’s mother does not want Barry to live in a year-round apartment rather than a dorm that is only open during the academic terms. Mrs. Cox’s attempt to keep him close ruins their relationship.