Summer delves into a young woman's exploration of her sexual awakening. At the beginning of the narrative, Charity is unsophisticated and lacks experience with men. She watches as others in her village form relationships but feels no attraction toward the young men in North Dormer. Harney is the first man to truly intrigue her, and as she spends more time with him, her feelings begin to deepen. Unlike many other literary protagonists, Charity doesn't yearn for a cozy home or a conventional role as a wife and mother; her desires revolve around sexual gratification.

At the novel's outset, Charity is disillusioned with her environment and the people around her. Despite feeling weary and cold, after stepping down from the buggy where Harney had gently held her in the rain, she experiences a sensation as if "the ground were a sunlit wave and she the spray on its crest." Watching him through his bedroom window, her past grievances and rebellious thoughts intermingle with the yearning ignited by Harney's closeness. Once their affair commences, she views "all the rest of life" as "a mere cloudy rim about the central glory of their passion." As she eagerly anticipates meeting Harney at their clandestine spot, Charity, who has longed to flee North Dormer since she was old enough to imagine it, feels he has "caught her up and carried her away to a new world." Charity doesn't contemplate how sex fits into her life, the potential duration of their relationship, or its possible consequences. For now, the thrill of sexual discovery is enough for her.

In Chapter 3, shortly after meeting Harney, Charity briefly dreams of marrying him. She pictures herself walking down the aisle in a wedding gown and imagines his kiss. As she envisions the kiss, she covers her face with her hands "as if to imprison the kiss," abruptly halting the daydream. Beyond this fleeting wedding vision, Charity never considers what marriage might involve. In fact, once they become lovers, she stops thinking about marriage altogether, only revisiting the idea when Lawyer Royall confronts Charity and Harney in the old house. When Charity sees her dress for Old Home Week laid out like a wedding dress, she recalls dreaming of marrying Harney but realizes that "She no longer had such visions . . . warmer splendors had displaced them."

In the early 1900s in the United States, social class remained a crucial factor in social interactions. It was rare for individuals from different social classes to develop close friendships or marry each other. As illustrated in Wharton's stories, she believed these social norms were particularly stringent among the very wealthy and those residing in remote rural areas. Small towns like North Dormer, which lacked a railroad station or telegraph, often held conservative views and enforced unspoken but well-understood codes of behavior. In North Dormer, it was widely understood that different social classes should remain separate.

In the world of Summer , three distinct social classes are portrayed. Most of the population consists of middle-class people working as shopkeepers and seamstresses. Lawyer Royall, due to his profession, stands slightly apart from the rest of the community and is regarded as somewhat above them, though he shares more similarities than differences. Below North Dormer's residents are the Mountain people, described as the “humblest of the humble.” Charity, born on the Mountain to a mother who was a prostitute and a father who was a criminal, acknowledges her fortune in living in North Dormer because “Everyone in the village had told her so ever since she had been brought there as a child.” Her appearance also sets her...