The Romanticized Class-Based Image of Martha's Vineyard

On 9/10/10, I wrote about trying to hold onto to the last days of summer by reading novels with the word "summer" in the title. Such books are often set in waterside locations, and one favorite such location is Martha's Vineyard; both novels I mentioned in that earlier post were set there. A fair number of novels are set there; Anne Rivers Siddons' novel "Up Island" springs to mind, and there are a couple of mystery series with MV settings. Somehow Martha's Vineyard epitomizes carefree vacations, but in a different way than, say, Florida or Hawaii do. Probably the difference is that Martha's Vineyard is known for being a vacation place for the monied classes, so the romance of summer is combined with the fantasy of affluence, especially of "old money." Although many Americans hold onto the tattered illusion that the United States is a classless society, in reality we are all very aware of class distinctions, the financial aspects of which have grown rapidly in the past ten years, with the increasing income gap between the richest and poorest residents. So even the settings of novels reflect Americans' muddled feelings about class and money, and readers' fascination with America's version of "aristocracy."