Mental Health: Callie goes over the importance of mentalm health within herself and within the others around her. How it changes her, and how they can get help.
Blame: Callie's issue begins because she blamed herself time and time again over things she had nothing to do with. IT caused very bad feelings, and things that drug her down enough to hurt herself.
Healing: Healing was a big theme in the book, because it took Callie a long time to come to terms with who she was at the time, and the healing process needed to begin. Her therapist helped her a lot with this healing process, and she helped a ton.
Understanding: Callie needed to understand the root of her issues before she could fix them. With understanding, there came great power in her healing process.
Themes:
Family: We learn about a different type of family dynamic that these children have. Over time we see how that changes as well. The lost of respect, the manipulation, yet there was still love. This dysfunctional family is in it together, for the worst.
Home: This family never really has a home. They have many houses (if you can call them that), but they mostly live on the road. The idea of home, somewhere that is safe and comfortable, only lives withing their hearts and minds.
Perseverance: The author lived through countless set backs and overcame so many obstacles. Along with her siblings, they made it through hell and back, and many of them went above and beyond. This was due to them being able to hold through it all, and be tough.
Class and Society:The Walls family defy everything that society has tried to make people be. They refused to hold a job, raise their children, or run a regular home.
Themes:
Difference in gender: In the novel, this era and placement in the world, the only job for a women was to please the men and do the work around the home. They had little to no power, except for a very few characters.
The use of manipulation: The girls in the novel are deceived, lied to, and manipulated constantly to keep them in fear and to ensure they don't try to escape or leave the house.
Loss of innocence: This one varies, on where you interpret Lakshmi lost her innocence. It could've been when her virginity was torn away from her brutally for the money, or as she lost all her human qualities and only the will to survive was left of her.
Use of Power: Many characters use their power for financial gain, they sell women and sex to get more money. They then use their power to strike fear into the women, in order to keep them there. Within this novel, sex itself is a physical representation of the power the "owner" has, and keeps above the girls.
Favorite Quote: "Gradually I begin to make out a kind of order in all the disorderliness, a pattern to it all. [...] If you look hard enough, chaos turns into order the way letters turn into words" (69). This quote, reminds me of life in general, and specifically to my family life. Life is unpredictable and wild, but sometimes, there is order to the craziness, and the way the author promotes this was beautiful. She also made a very impressive comparison at the end of the quote that I really liked.
Themes: Persona is a major theme in this novel. It is genuinely a unique subject to talk about, that fact that no one knows someone completely. It seems almost natural that we alter ourselves, even the tiniest bit, with the people we're around, and choose to be someone even the slightest bit. This somewhat ties into the idea that everyone wants to belong and feel valued.
Within our time, society is beginning to get more open about mental health and getting help when necessary. The novel addresses some mental health issues and perhaps illnesses within its pages. As Evan becomes obsessed, his thoughts get more dark, and you can almost see him slipping into a worse mindset, arguing with himself, and having a difficult time in daily things.
Guilt is common, and it can affect someone to a great extent. If you feel responsible for something that isn't necessarily your fault, and then one is beginning to torture you with it, it can lead to crazy things. In this novel it kind of ties in with the mental illness and being able to find help if it's necessary. Evan isn't able to move on from what had happened because he replays it inside his mind daily, and won't understand and accept that their choice was their "right" choice. If you feel as if you hurt someone you care about, it is bound to haunt you. The author made a stand and a theme with some of his style of writing. The lines through his deepest thoughts, to me seemed to be a comparison between society acceptance and reality. We are all seemed to force ourselves to hold in what we truly want to say or do, in order to stay between the lines of whats suppose to be.
Death was a theme that wasn't talked about a ton, the majority of the novel I had the assumption that the Ariel girl had committed suicide. In the end, the action that made the boys "bad" was preventing letting her take her own life. The mystery girl, had this idea that death was freedom. Now I'm sure we all have our own opinions, but the boys argued she wanted help, not death. And the girl argued she wanted freedom, not help. " She didn't want help. She wanted freedom. But death is not freedom. For a moment, it can look like freedom. But then it is death"(237).
Favorite Quote: "I don't want you to think I got through this undamaged okay? But I'm learning to live with it. Because otherwise, the damage is all you are" (153). This was my favorite quote, because of the accuracy. It reminds me of people with rough lives, and tough childhoods who are capable of making themselves more, but make the conscious decision of not doing so. It is one of my biggest pet peeves. Many of them complain of their trauma and setbacks, but many don't do a single thing towards changing it. When really the first step is growing a better mindset. Personally, I've been through many difficult times in my life, but I don't let this stop me from improving and preventing myself from being someone I could be by using the excuse of my traumatic events.
Themes:
The love shared between the characters is a big theme in this novel, because it is not only marital, but it's family, parental, sibling, companionship, friendship, lust, and of course, the love for our furry little friends. Ex: Denny and Enzo, Denny and Eve, Denny and Zoe, Annika and Denny, Trish and Maxwell for Zoe and Eve, + more
The quality or state of being human is another major theme in The Art of Racing in the Rain. Humanity isn't just about being a person, it's about being one with morals and following through with them. Enzo repeatedly reminds us some human qualities we don't always recognize we have. Ex: Mistakes happen, not being able to live in the present, always worrying about the future, naive of our language, worrying about all but ourselves, the demons inside us, being afraid of death, are only some of the lessons ENzo mentioned.
Family is a theme in this novel as well. Between Denny, Eve, Zoe, and Enzo they each of the others backs in always a positive way. But, family can be destructive sometimes as well (cough cough the in laws) Zoe's grandparents threw Denny under the bus, the day of their daughter's death, what does this really say about them? Denny's parents, who haven't been around, finally came around.
Control is a high theme. It mostly correlates with Denny and his race car driving, which relates to life itself. Being able to stay in control of a situation in your life, or on the tracks is extremely important to balance life.
FAVORITE QUOTE: "[...] how difficult it must be to be a person. To constantly subvert your desires to worry about doing the right thing, rather than doing what is most expedient"(122). This was one of my favorite realizations that Enzo spoke out about. He notices many different things about being human that many of us don't take a moment to note or understand. This quote specifically talks about how humans may not do what they want to do, because of some moral obligation or type of guilt. As humans, we sometimes have to make choices that don't go 100% in our favor, because we care too much for other people in our life. This quote also reminded me of the guilt talk we had as well.
Themes:
Nothing good comes out of shame.
The home is sacred and important, even if it doesn't' always feel so.
Loss of innocence
Society and class
Friends and Family
Favorite Quote:
"I did it by doing the things I was afraid of doing so that I would no longer be afraid" (XXII). In the novel, the author explains to us the hard times and scary things the character had gone through.This quote represented her bursting through her fears and showing her determination to come out on top of them. Not only as an individual, but everyone should try to live and grow by this idea. We should face the things we are scared of head on, in order to no longer be afraid of them, or let fear control us. I plan on partaking with this during the transition to after high school and the rest of my life.