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Throughout The Girl on the Train, the novel’s three main characters— Rachel, Megan, and Anna —all struggle with motherhood in different ways as they attempt to embody society’s idea of a good mother. Rachel feels like a failure as a woman because she cannot have a child.
- Women and Society
As Rachel Watson struggles to understand her role in the...
- Motherhood, Duty, and Care
Throughout The Girl on the Train, the novel’s three main...
- Secrets and Lies
Throughout The Girl on the Train, Hawkins uses a plot...
- Women and Society
Discussion of themes and motifs in Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train. eNotes critical analyses help you gain a deeper understanding of The Girl on the Train so you can excel on your essay...
The Girl on the Train. As the book is set in 2012 and 2013, characters appropriately communicate by digital means such as email and text messaging. However, digital communication is important as a theme since it affects the ways in which people can communicate.
- Fractured Memory Equals Fractured Self
- Abandonment and Isolation
- The Role of Women
- Deceit and Betrayal in Suburbia
Rachel habitually blacks out when she's drunk, making her a questionable witness and narrator. Indeed, time and again, the novel stresses that the people involved do not trust her because she tells lies—to hide her alcoholism and the shame connected with its consequences, such as her unemployment—and because she has a terrible time remembering thin...
The novel begins with an image of abandoned clothes, immediately creating a sense of loneliness in a crowded environment. Rachel lives near London, a city buzzing with human activity, and rides on a crowded commuter train every morning and night, and yet barely interacts with anyone. She usually sits by herself, turned away from the other commuters...
In Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train, women are defined by rather traditional roles: the sexy lover, the loyal and submissive wife, and the devoted mother. Rachel, Megan, and Anna define themselves not as independent women, but in relation to a husband or lover or as part of a family unit. In fact, although all three women are professionals, th...
Looking into the windows of the houses she passes by, Rachel believes that the strangers she sees live the perfect life she lost. The novel exposes that both the supposedly charmed life she lost and the charmed lives she watches are anything but. The novel is full of lies: the characters don't tell the truth, not to each other and not to the reader...
The Girl on the Train Themes. Drugs and Alcohol. Public transportation is one of humanity's greatest equalizers. At some point, almost everyone will ride a train, bus, or subway, from a dishwasher to an advertising executive to an actor heading t... Memory and the Past.
In-depth summary and analysis of every chapter of The Girl on the Train. Visual theme-tracking, too.
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As Rachel Watson struggles to understand her role in the disappearance of a young and beautiful woman from an outer suburb of London, Megan Hipwell, Hawkins suggests that society is structured to overwhelm, overburden, and then ultimately abandon women in their greatest moments of need.
