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The Lovers are members of the vacationing party on Grand Isle, but they function more as symbolic set-dressing than fleshed-out characters. They represent a youthful first love that exists entirely in the moment with no thought to the future. Throughout the novel, the Lovers are heedless of the action around them, focusing only on each other. The narrator describes them as “oblivious” with “not a particle of earth beneath their feet,” implying that they have no sense of reality. When they first appear, they are sitting in the children’s tent on the beach, using it as a space of privacy, but are subsequently chased out by the children. This moment symbolizes the way the Lovers don’t recognize the long-term consequences of their actions. If these lovers are to marry, they will likely, according to cultural scripts, have children, which will alter their relationship dynamic. They will not be able to ignore the world around them, but will have to be at least somewhat pragmatic to tend to their children. Later in the novel, Doctor Mandelet comments that the passions of youth often set people up for unhappy marriages, and he diagnoses this as the root behind Edna’s own unhappiness.
