Setting

In Dandelion Wine, the setting of Green Town becomes almost another character. On the one hand, Bradbury has been very clear that he modeled Green Town after his own childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois. According to Bradbury, there were tree-lined streets, people sitting on porches on a summer evening, and even a frightening dark ravine. However, Green Town becomes mythic in its significance to Dandelion Wine. The town is isolated, surrounded by a deep forest, with no connection to the outside world. Symbolically, the town is a kind of Garden of Eden for Doug, the place where one day he realizes he is alive. Likewise, the Lonely One, skulking about in the ravine is akin to the serpent in Eden, the serpent who brings death to humankind. Doug's growing awareness of life and death is paralleled by Green Town's gradual change from an isolated city where no one...