Carol Kennicott Timeline and Summary

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• When we first meet Carol, she's attending a small college and thinking about all the great tings she'll do with her life. She eventually decides that she'll make her mark on the world by moving to a small town and transforming it into a modern cultural center.
• After graduating, Carol becomes a professional librarian and meets Dr. Will Kennicott. Will lives in a small town called Gopher Prairie, which seems ideal for Carol's plans to change a town. Will uses her dreams to convince her to marry him.
• From the moment she arrives in Gopher Prairie, Carol feels like she's made a huge mistake. The town is ugly and full of boring, conservative people.
• Carol does her best to make Gopher Prairie a more interesting place, but none of her ideas ever take root. People try out her ideas once and then go back to their normal dull lives. Carol eventually starts to despair.
• Carol gets pregnant with her first child, which ends up making Carol feel even more trapped in her life in Gopher Prairie.
• A young, effeminate tailor's assistant named Erik Valbourg moves to Gopher Prairie. Carol is immediately attracted to his ambitions for a great life. They strike up a friendship that pretty soon becomes an emotional affair. The town seems to realize it and scolds Carol for being an immoral woman.
• Will eventually finds out about Carol's connection with Erik and puts a stop to it. Erik leaves town forever.
• Carol decides that she can't stay one more minute in Gopher Prairie without a break. She and Will take a trip to California, but it doesn't help. Carol is more dissatisfied than ever when she returns to Gopher Prairie.
• Eventually, Carol decides that she can't live with Will in Gopher Prairie anymore. She moves to Washington, D.C. with her son Hugh and lives there for two years.
• Living in Washington gives Carol the chance to be a professional woman with a busy life. But over time, she realizes that her life in Washington isn't leading anywhere. The city is big and interesting, but Carol knows she'll never be able to make a mark on it.
• In the end, Carol moves back to Gopher Prairie, but she promises herself she'll never give in to the town's conformity and be satisfied with it. She also promises her new child (a daughter) that the world will offer a lot more opportunities to women by the time this girl grows up.