The Prince of Tides (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Pat Conroy
- First Published: 1986
- Type of Plot: Family
- Time of Work: The 1940’s through early 1980’s
- Setting: Coastal South Carolina and New York City
- Principal Characters: Tom Wingo, Savannah Wingo, Luke Wingo, Henry Wingo, Lila Wingo Newbury, Susan Lowenstein
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1950’s, Teaching or teachers, 1960’s, 1970’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Adolescence, Suicide, South or Southerners, Gender roles, New York City, 1980’s, High schools or high school students, Coaching or coaches
- Locales: New York, NY, South Carolina
The Novel
The Prince of Tides is a long novel of twenty-seven chapters framed by a prologue and an epilogue. Strewn with autobiographical overtones, the novel recounts the life of the fictional Wingo family of Colleton, South Carolina, as seen through the eyes of narrator and protagonist Tom Wingo. Through his attempts to help a psychiatrist save Tom’s suicidal twin sister, Savannah, by telling the family story, he learns to face and accept his past and thus begins to set his own life in order.
In the prologue, Tom’s ambivalence about both his birthplace and...
[The entire page is 2181 words long]
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