Minnatalla

Minnatalla is the girls' summer camp on the shore of a small lake in the southern part of the state, a hundred and forty miles from Harper. It is where Nancy Bowden, the eldest daughter of Sam and Carol Bowden, spends her summers, and it is the place where the family's carefully maintained normalcy is set against the gathering threat of Max Cady. The camp is a world of golden summer, of swimming and water skiing and social committees, a fragile sanctuary that the Bowdens work hard to preserve even as the menace at home grows. It is also the place where Nancy's innocent romance with Tommy Kent, the chairman of the Gannatalla social committee, begins to take shape, marking her transition from childhood to young adulthood against the backdrop of her family's siege.

Setting and Family Planning

Minnatalla is a girls' camp on the shore of a small lake in the southern part of the state, a hundred and forty miles from Harper. It is under the same management as Gannatalla, the boys' camp three miles away, and the two camps share the lake and its facilities. The camp plans are settled in family council back in April when the applications have to be in. Nancy has pleaded to be allowed to attend for six weeks this year instead of the usual month, and after consideration of all factors, her request is granted. It will be her fourth year at Minnatalla, and probably her last. Jamie, her younger brother, will return for his second year to Gannatalla, and he objects strenuously to being limited to one month, settling only for a guarantee that when he is fourteen he will be allowed to register for six weeks. Bucky, the youngest, is stolidly indignant about the whole thing, since it means nothing to him that he will start going in three years; three years is half his entire age, an eternity, and he is an unwilling victim of cruel and unnecessary discrimination.

The camp is a place of ritual and routine, of lists checked and gear off-loaded into cabins. On the day the children are taken to camp, the family picnics on the island on Sunday, and on the way home a stiff breeze comes up, and Bucky, accepting his Bonamine a little too late, spends the last half hour of the trip home hanging over the rail, intensely indignant with his own stomach, aware of black betrayal. In the early morning excitement closes Jamie's stomach into a knot, and he cannot eat. Mike Tamer comes down the road to bid Jamie a forlorn farewell. The wagon is loaded, the house locked, and they take off, with Bucky infected by the excitement of the others, though on the way back home he will be sunk in sour gloom until he inevitably falls asleep on the back seat.

The Camp Supervisor and the Family's Concerns

When Sam and Jamie off-load Nancy's gear into her cabin, Sam drives to the administration cottage and has a talk with the camp supervisor, a new man, younger than the man he has replaced. The man's name is Teller, and Sam soon recognizes the type. Teller is very much like that sort of officious social worker who considers the rules and forms more important than the human beings he deals with. He is gently patronizing, and it is clear that he thinks he is dealing with an overprotective parent. When Sam tries to explain his concerns, Teller responds with a platitude: "Nancy has a very good record here at Minnatalla, Mr. Bowden. We're delighted she's back with us, and I am certain she will have a happy and profitable summer." Sam patiently insists that that isn't the point, but the conversation is not a very satisfactory one. The camp supervisor's complacency stands in sharp contrast to the real danger the Bowdens face, and it underscores the family's isolation in their knowledge of Cady's threat.

The camp itself, however, proves to be a place of genuine happiness for Nancy. When the family picks her up at the end of the summer, she looks overwhelmingly healthy, and she has stars in her eyes. She is bubbling over with news: the camp is wonderful this year, Mr. Teller is pretty creepy but he keeps out of the way, and she is assistant chairman of the social committee. Tommy Kent is chairman of the Gannatalla social committee, so they have meetings often to make arrangements. Tommy is doing wonderful, and Mr. Menard has made Tommy a sort of personal assistant. One redheaded girl gets poison ivy so badly she has to be sent home, another girl falls off a horse and sprains her shoulder but isn't going home, and there is a new fast boat for the water skiing, with the camps taking turns with it and Tommy as the regular driver.

The Camp as Sanctuary and the Threat Beyond

The camp represents a fragile sanctuary, a space of childhood ritual and golden summer that stands in stark contrast to the violence and menace gathering around the family at home. The Bowdens' decision to send Nancy to camp is made in April, before Cady's release, and it is a decision rooted in the family's desire to maintain normalcy in the face of an abnormal threat. The camp is a place where Nancy can be a child, where she can swim and ski and serve on committees, where the only dangers are poison ivy and sprained shoulders. It is a world apart, a hundred and forty miles from Harper, and it is precisely this distance that makes it a sanctuary.

Yet the camp is also the place where Nancy's innocence is most visible, and where the family's vulnerability is most acute. Sam's unsatisfactory talk with Teller reveals the limits of the family's ability to protect Nancy even in this safe place; the camp supervisor cannot understand the nature of the threat, and Sam cannot explain it without revealing the depths of his own fear. The camp is a reminder that the Bowdens' world is balanced on a delicate web of incidence and coincidence, and that even the most carefully planned summer can be disrupted by forces beyond their control. It is a place of golden summer, but it is also a place where the family's anxieties are brought into sharp relief, a sanctuary that is also a reminder of what is at stake.