The Girl On The Train Analysis

Based on the stories I have read in class this year, I have learned that strong women can exist throughout all types of stories, and that they can be written in many different ways. In Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, we meet Marji, a young girl inspired by her politically active parents to fight for civil rights for women in war-torn Iran. In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, we see a woman, Celie, who has been abused her whole life fighting against her abuser to pursue her dream with the woman she loves. And lastly, in The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi Durrow, we meet Rachel, a teenager whose life has been full of trauma learning about her family and how different they are from normal people. All these stories display strong women overcoming

Characters, in Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, force the protagonist, Rachel, to choose between her white and black side. They only acknowledge her black side while only celebrating her white qualities. Consequently, Rachel feels the obligation to accept the roles that have been thrust upon her and ignores part of her race because of the commentary from her family and peers. Rachel adapting to the portrayal of her racial identity to appeal to the normalized opinions of her appearance, demonstrates her tendency to comply with the categorization people of color face throughout society. Ultimately, leading Rachel to pick and choose the parts of her racial identity that most please the people she is with.

As for Anna’s crimes, on a social and familial level Anna, having not been married off at an appropriate age, pursued sexual relationships with not one but two men out-of-wedlock and without her father’s knowing. Furthermore, Anna was accused of stealing from her father relentlessly and of leading a “scandalous, undisciplined, and reprehensible life” (3). These crimes, in addition to the consequent reactions of her family and city would provide the foundation out of which the feud would fester.

Due to the novel’s reverse chronological order, the reader often draws parallels and fills in the gaps as the novel progresses. An example of this is on page 9, where Anna confides her sentiments to the reader, stating that losing herself, “in someone else’s thoughts is the greatest relief I can find from the burden of my own memories.” This is later built upon in the novel, where the source of her gloomy sentiments is revealed to the reader.

Anna’s id appears to be the dominant aspect of her personality, especially in the beginning of the story,

We are first introduced to Anna, a thin woman with short dark hair, in her dialogue with her father where it quickly becomes apparent that they already have a difference in opinion on love, marriage and what she should wear on a yacht. “that guy will never marry you my darling daughter” to which Anna replies “so far, I’ve been the one who doesn’t want to marry him” “it’s the same difference” her father disagrees (Antonioni. 3:45 – 3:55). Although this is a short glimpse into Anna’s character we can see that she resists these social standards and almost seems annoyed by them. Anna is seemingly the most self- aware of the characters but seems to be stuck in a position where she is unsure of how everyone else will react to her true

Each of these 5 perspectives are effectively told in first person, through cell phone texts, journals, and homework assignments, which helped me understand the way the characters think, feel, and act. The author made the characters’ way of speaking match their personality. ““Screw this!” Izzy blurts. “I am SO outta here.” She moves towards the door, but Nerd Girl jumps up and blocks her.”(27). Most chapters end with amazing cliffhangers that make the reader come back for more. “She looks up from her phone, her face white. Her voice a whisper, she says, “...it's not a drill.””(27). The sentences the author wrote were fairly easy to understand as were the characters. There are also a few parts that are somewhat poetic. ““This is real life. Not everything has a story.” Alice smiles. “But every person does.””(85). The author incorporated several references that high school students have, most likely, read or watched in their life. “I read Hamlet in Dunne’s class.”(86). “She knows I love comics. Especially Star Wars

Kant as a philosopher believed that human mind is the creator of the human experiences. According to the song “Jessie’s Girl”, Kant the philosopher would say that whatever the artist of the song, Rick had had a lot of thoughts about the girl in question, Jessie. And that he had fed so much about that girl into his mind. Due to the structuring of the mind that had occurred earlier, the artist became so obsessed that he could not articulate his way out of the situation. He went further to a condition where all see and think of is, what is happening between the girl he had so admired and the friend of his who had changed so suddenly against him.

The movie, Girl, Interrupted, displays Susanna Kaysen’s eighteen-month stay at a mental institute in the 1960s. This film was an adaptation of a book based on a true story of the main character and author Susanna Kaysen. Susanna was checked into Claymore, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. At first, Susanna denies this blatant attempt at suicide and constantly struggles with uncertainty of her thoughts and emotions. Although Girl, Interrupted exhibits several mental disorders one of the most prevalent disorder of this film is Susanna’s Borderline Personality Disorder. This film depicts majority of the signs and symptoms of a person with Borderline Personality. As stated in the textbook, “the lives of persons with borderline personality are marked by instability. Their relationships are unstable, their behavior is unstable, their emotions are unstable, and even their images of themselves are unstable” (Larsen and Buss 593). Susanna’s romantic relationships are extremely unstable and she frequently engages in casual sex. She jumps from one guy to another in a matter of few weeks. One scene that establishes this the most is when her boyfriend at the time comes to visit her at Claymore and expresses his true feelings for her and she instantly withdraws. He asked her to go to Canada with him and she turns him down immediately. She also kisses Lisa who she befriends at the mental institute, displaying a switch of

When Anna had to leave her rented attic because her school closed down and she had no reason to stay she worried how she might feed the man. Anna did good though thanks to the scraps from the inn and her uncle franz giving her the pigs ration of potatoes. There are many tough parts for Anna in the book. The biggest challenge would be Anna’s fight to not give in to her brother who may tell on her. She worries he may have her shot.

The first flaw is the first-person point of view. The text suggests, “one of the character tell(s) the story and uses the first person pronoun, “I”…is restricted to what one character says he or she observes.” (WEAL, 46) This can be a major drawback because the reader may not get a broad perspective. For example, in the book one of the characters, recounted examining a bite mark, “ I realized that it wasn’t from an animal.” (Brooks, 6) In this scenario, the reader learns only from the first-person point of view and not from the other characters and their speculation

In my opinion, Anna is weak, conceited, and naïve. Anna knows that Tom has secrets that could potentially be life changing, but she refuses to acknowledge the fact that he could be dangerous. She wants to believe that Tom loves her and only her, despite the fact that he left his first wife for her, and he is likely to cheat again. Anna wants to believe that Tom is innocuous. When Tom compares Anna to Rachel, he calls them both weak.

A different character narrates each chapter, what makes this a cohesive interconnected novel between the characters? Is it a common theme shared or the characters involved?

In the movie Girl, Interrupted the plot surrounds a period in the life of Susanna Kaysen played by Winona Ryder who was institutionalized at the Claymore mental hospital in the 1960s. In the movie, the main character Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and undergoes treatment to which at the end of the movie she is released. It is at this hospital that Susanna encounters many other patients of which she shares many experiences with. One of these patients was the longtime resident and popular amongst all the other patients Lisa Rowe played by Angelina Jolie whom Susanna became close with and would mid-movie escape the hospital with to only return on her own and find that Lisa would be back a few days later. Lisa, while being the protagonist of the movie, was very charismatic in her own way and based on her behavior and revelation in the movie is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, particularly a sociopath in the movie.

Every club has bake sales to attain money for future projects; but there has never been one as interesting as the one I saw last Wednesday. I Am That Girl is a club on the FDU Florham campus "which is apart of a worldwide organization that supports the mental, physical and emotional well being of girls and men," stated the current president Jill Isaacson. The club advocates for sell love and how vulnerability is strength.