The book ‘The Girl on the Train’ - written by British author Paula Hawkins - is a psychological thriller, debuted at number one on The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2015. Being published on the 13th of January 2015, the novel centers around three women - Rachel, Megan and Anna. But when one of the girls go missing, a search begins, affecting everyone’s life in the process. Hawkins story is a captivating and thrilling one that teaches readers the downsides of betrayal and alcohol abuse.
At the onset, Rachel Watson was married to Tom Watson. Every couple wants a dream life, and this is exactly what Rachel and Tom had, for a while. But while Rachel was planning a trip for their fourth year anniversary, she stumbled upon conversations in Tom’s laptop that he had with a lady named Anna. Tom was cheating. He didn’t like Rachel’s inability to conceive and her excessive consumption of alcohol. Soon after, they got a divorce, but ironically, Rachel was the one who moved out, while she was quickly replaced by Anna - in the home that she and Tom bought and decorated. Nonetheless, Rachel was desperate, in love, and wanted Tom back. Now, she is just a girl on the train, a depressed alcoholic, dressed in disheveled attire, drinking gin and tonic from a can. Rachel would catch the train into the city every day as if going to work, but refused to tell Cathy (her friend who gave her a place to stay) that she wasn’t going to
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Megan cheated with Scott, her loving husband, with Tom and she was the first in the novel to die as a result. Next, Tom cheated on Rachel, his wife at that time, with Anna, and then he cheated on Anna, his second wife, with Megan. It comes as no surprise that he died next. Hawkins relates a sense of justice relating to readers that no bad deed goes unpunished, especially, infidelity. It is a wakeup call to consider morals rather than thought of desires; faithfulness is always
The Orphan Train is a compelling story about a young girl, Molly Ayer, and an older woman, Vivian Daly. These two live two completely different yet similar lives. This book goes back and forth between the point of views of Molly and Vivian. Molly is seventeen and lives with her foster parents, Ralph and Dina, in Spruce Harbor, Maine. Vivian is a ninety-one year old widow from Ireland who moved to the United States at a young age. Molly soon gets into trouble with the law and has to do community service. Molly’s boyfriend, Jack, gets his mom to get her some service to do. Jack’s mom allows her to help Vivian clean out her attic. While Molly is getting her hours completed, Vivian explains her past to her. Vivian tells her about all the good times and bad in her life. She tells her about how she had to take a train, the orphan train, all around the country after her family died in a fire. She told her about all the families she stayed with and all the friends she made along the way, especially about Dutchy. Dutchy is a boy she met on the orphan train and lost contact with for numerous years, but then found each other again and got married and pregnant. Sadly, Dutchy died when he was away in the army shortly after Vivian got pregnant. When Vivian had her child, she decided to give her up for adoption. Molly and Vivian grew very close throughout the time they spent together. Molly knows that Dina, her foster mother, is not very fond of her and tells her to leave. Having no place to go, Vivian let her stay at her house.
In the novel, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, we learn the story of a abused girl trying to survive the world that she was placed in. She never had any friends until she was in the sixth grade, when she met Eric. Eric was also an outcast because of his weight. The other kids call him Moby because he's on the swim team and that's their clever way of saying that he is like a whale. Sarah and Eric have been friends for six years and when she stops talking and is placed in a psych ward, he questions the situation right away. Eric visits her frequently to try and get her to talk. Sarah finds a way to tell Eric part of the reason why she hasn't been talking. She is trying her best to stay away from her abusive father. In this story, Eric is fighting his hardest for someone that doesn't want his help which makes the situation more difficult, but not impossible. As you follow the story of Sarah and her struggles, the theme will scream at you what real friendship is.
The story, “Good Country People,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a third person limited narration which means the reader can only look into the mind of only a few of the characters. Those characters are Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga, or Joy. Schmoop discusses a deeper understanding about the narrator of the story.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
In the novel Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline, we witness a relationship develop between Molly, a seventeen year old in the foster care system, and Vivian, a ninety-one year old widow that is looking to clean out her attic. As the book progresses, we see them grow closer through telling stories and bonding over their joint hardships. Kline goes out of her way to illustrate this strengthening friendship through many little hints in the novel to where she is ultimately leading the duo.
“I envied the people in the train because they seemed to be going somewhere” (Lesley,7).
Just spending some time in the modern-day classroom; I have observed several students on their phones. During my high school years we did not have to worry about cell phones or laptops being a constant problem. In Annie Murphy Paul’s “You’ll Never Learn!” she explains the studies of multitasking while students do their homework with the modern-day distraction of the digital age; resulting in a lower quality of learning. I agree with Paul that the digital age is becoming a problem in education, even though educators are leaning towards teaching on a digital spectrum. In this essay, I will explain how a digital age versus a non-digital age is effecting everyone involved in a higher education.
Straying away from life as a whole only to be alone, some may say is the strong way to heal themselves when dealing with extreme grief or a major crisis . In the book Wild, twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost it all. Dealing with the loss of her mother, her family torn to pieces, and her very own marriage was being destroyed right before her very eyes. Living life with nothing more to lose, lifeless, she made the most life changing decision of her life. Strayed never seems remorseful on her decisions to up and leave everything behind while deciding to flee from it all. This being her way of dealing with life, it shows her as being strong; a woman of great strength and character. She shows personal strength, which is more than just a physical word. It is a word of very high value and can only be defined by searching deep within your very own soul.
“Orphan Train”, written by Christina Baker Kline, is a novel telling the tales of two lives, Vivian Daly and Molly Ayer. Ninety-one year old Vivian, orphaned at a young age due to a tragic fire (19), explores her past when she encounters seventeen year old Molly, orphaned after her father’s death and her mother being thrown in jail. After getting caught attempting to steal “Jane Eyre” from the school library (6), Molly was referred to Vivian by her boyfriend, Jack, in hopes of knocking out fifty hours of community service by organizing Vivian’s attic. In doing so, Molly begins to uncover and question Vivian about
In the poem “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party,” Sharon Olds uses imagery to convey pride in her daughter’s growing femininity. What would seem to be another childhood pool party for the girl turns into an event that marks a rite of passage to adulthood. Though the narrator is reluctant of her daughter’s search for an identity, she ultimately sees her daughter’s transformation to womanhood as admirable. Olds’ pride is first shown when the girl begins to lose her innocence from the unfamiliar surroundings of masculine men. The narrator says, “They will strip to their suits, her body hard and indivisible as a prime number” (5-6). The girl’s stiff and confident stature that this image conveys suggests that she is anxious yet willing to progress
Humans are naturally imperfect beings, we lie, cheat, and steal from each other, and this is represented in three seminal works of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Specifically, these books deal with humans tendency to cheat and betray each other. This is exhibited in Tom’s betrayal of Daisy with Myrtle; Sula’s betrayal of Nel with Jude; and Hester’s betrayal of Chillingworth with Dimmesdale. In each of the novels, betrayal plays a central role in the story as well as the world at large within each of the novels. Without these instances of betrayal, the readers of each novel would have a much different understanding of the three main characters in
Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story, but give significance as well. The point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and atmosphere not only affect the characters but evokes emotion and gives the reader a mental picture of their lives, and the impacting theme along-side conflict, both internal and external, are shown throughout the novel. The author chooses to write the novel through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Jack. Jack’s perception of the world is confined to an eleven foot square room.
Imagine it – all the rules you were raised to follow, all the beliefs and norms, everything conventional, shattered. Now imagine It – Clara Bow, the It Girl. The epitome of the avant-garde woman, the archetype of the flapper, was America’s new, young movie actress of the 1920’s. Modern women of the day took heed to Bow’s fresh style and, in turn, yielded danger to the conventional America. Yet Bow’s contagious and popular attitude came with its weaknesses - dealing with fame and the motion picture industry in the 1920’s. Despite this ultimate downfall, Clara’s flair reformed the youth and motion pictures of her time.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
and she makes it clear that she is fed up of working hard, like when