Change In Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Good Squad

Change can be seen as something as simple as switching a favorite color over time, or growing out of a shirt that once fit perfectly. On the other hand, it can also be seen as something incredibly substantial, such as moving to a new country or even expecting a baby. Either way, somehow difference is present in whatever it is that is changing. Personality and habit changes occur during every person’s lifetime; some are much more notable than others. In Jennifer Egan’s novel A Visit from the Good Squad, she begins and ends the story with the character of Sasha. Further, over due time Sasha gains much needed redemption from a long-lasting stealing problem. Sasha is the character that changes the most throughout the novel as shown by the end to

Generally, running away itself is seen as a very immature thing to do. What is even worse is running away to another country with a drummer and ending up abandoned in an unfamiliar place. With a severe lack of logic, she stayed out of the country as opposed to returning once she was no longer with the drummer, Wade. Egan says, “Sasha had resurfaced periodically, requesting money wires in several far-flung locales…” (Egan 213). With this quote, it is shown that not only did she continue on her own out in completely different places, but she was never doing well enough to be stable in her endeavors. Had she never requested money wires, the view on Sasha leaving could be completely different. However, the reader can tell that the situation that Sasha was in is not a smart one to continue on with. From the view of Rob, the novel states, “‘She was a hooker,’ you say. ‘A hooker and a thief—that’s how she survived in Naples’” (Egan 204). Later in the novel, when Sasha is twenty-one years old, she is seen coming back to the states to enroll at New York University in order to pursue an education. After not being home for so long, one can imagine the difficulty that must come with making the decision to finally return. Though Sasha was not in a great financial situation in Naples, she still stuck it out for multiple

It is plain to know that taking on the role of a parent is a great responsibility for anyone to have. In order to fulfill this title to her best interest, there was a lot of growing up needed from her between the first times Sasha is seen and the time she is seen as a mother. At the end of the eleventh chapter, the novel states, “He would step through a living room room strewn with the flotsam of her young kids and watch the western sun blaze through a sliding glass door. And for an instant he would remember Naples: sitting with Sasha in her tiny room; the jolt of surprise and delight he’d felt when the sun finally dropped into the center of her window and was captured inside her circle of wire” (Egan 233). Here, the audience can see that Sasha’s uncle is shortly reflecting on her time of immaturity when running away from home; the line instigates the difference he sees in the two times. Back then, she had been just a young person typically thinking that she was invincible. Now, he is looking around and realizing that she has put that all behind her and changed for the better of not only herself, but the family she now has. Sasha again shows significant change in this aspect, comparing and contrasting when she was young and naïve to her now grown up