The Works The Tenth Circle and My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult - Literature review Example

The works The Tenth Circle and My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult each offer the reader unique and riveting plot lines that differ in content but areequally captivating, real, and well developed. In each text Jodi goes to great lengths to structure her stories in such a way that the character's lives and their worlds our incredibly vivid as well as remarkably captivating. Additionally, Jodi's vivid descriptive language and writing style shows itself in both of these novels. Although the two texts differ in subject matter, Jodi utilizes similar themes of individuality and family unity that develop out of unique ideas and issues. In both The Tenth Circle and My Sister's Keeper, the main characters are teenage girls. In The Tenth Circle the main character is Trixie, a fourteen-year-old-girl who is constantly trying to break away from her parents and grasp onto independence, and who is dealing with the not-so-easy task of trying to fit into high school, deal with a first crush, and sever the tight grasp of her father's hold on her. When the reader first meets Trixie, she has just been dumped by her first love and is attempting to grapple with the multitude of emotions that comes along with that. The narrator describes Trixie's thoughts and feelings as she arrives at High School and wonders if everyone knows. The narrator explains that Trixie "had been a ghost since the breakup. This meant that she walked around school and smiled when she was supposed to and pretended to listen to the teacher like she was supposed to while feeling and thinking nothing." The narrator also explains that "Trixie had overheard a girl making a bet about when she might fall apart in a public situation" (20). Thus this text immediately puts its main character into perspective. Jodi Picoult does a fantastic job of utilizing the teenage emotions and trials that all human beings can relate to in order to make her main character a person that the reader can understand. Like Trixie, Anna, the main character in My Sister's Keeper is also, at thirteen, a young teenager whose main focus in life is trying to figure out who she is and to gain independence in the process. Very different from Trixie, however, is the fact that Anna must face these teenage challenges in the face of knowing that she was scientifically brought into this world in order to be a perfect donor match for her leukemia ridden sister. On the first page of the text Anna states, "I was born for a very specific purpose. I was born because a scientist managed to hook up my mother's eggs and my fathers sperm to create a specific combination of precious genetic material" (7-8). This precious genetic material is the very material that Anna's parents need to save their other daughter from death. Because of these circumstances, Anna is a character who must not only grapple with the many hardships that come with being a teenager as Trixie must do, but must also grapple with these hardships while dealing with some very complex, very adult circumstances as well. In each of these two texts Jodi Picoult manages to create very intricate and unique plot lines. In The Tenth Circle, Trixie is raped by the boy who she believed to be her one true love. The majority of the text explores the family dynamics as Trixie, along with her parents, attempt to deal with the aftermath of this terrible event. After Trixie reveals to her father that she has been raped, the narrator explains her father's thoughts. Her father thinks, "This [is] the nightmare that [sinks] its teeth into every parent's neck. Your child is hurt. How quickly can you make it better" (61). Throughout the text Trixie's father and mother spend much of their time trying to make it better while Trixie deals with the internal damage that her parents can certainly never fix. In My Sisters Keeper, the reader is presented with yet another very unique, very well-developed and intricate plot line. The story centers around Anna and her sick sister and, like The Tenth Circle, focuses on the family dynamics that surround these two girls and their unique circumstances. Once Anna decides that she no longer wishes to serve as a guinea pig for her sick sister, the reader observes as the family breaks down and is forced to face the fact that Anna is an individual with her own rights and wishes. At one point, after Anna has actually gone so far as to hire herself an attorney to represent her rights, her mother has one of what will be several emotional outbursts and breakdowns. The narrator explains that Anna's mother "steams into the kitchen, opening cabinets and slamming them shut." Then after Anna's father has told her to cool off she screams, "I have one child who's just signed her sister's death sentence and I'm supposed to cool off" (91). The rest of the text presents a series of arguments, breakdowns, and emotions as the family attempts to face the reality of what Anna's decision will mean. Thematically, these two texts have some similarities. Each deals with teenage girls who are just beginning to step foot into that unfamiliar territory of puberty and all of the emotions and behaviors that come with it. This leads to one of the most important themes in both of these texts which is individuality. Both Trixie and Anna are desperately trying to break free from the reigns of their parents and to make a place for themselves in the world. Though the two girls often go about this in different ways, their goal is the same; to be recognized as the separate beings that they are, and to be respected for this separateness. Another theme that presents itself in both texts has to do with family in terms of the many issues that all families must face because of the unique people that exist within them. Both texts demonstrate the love that holds a family together during the roughest of times, as well as the rifts that can begin to tear a family apart at the seams if they are not ultimately addressed. In both of these texts Jodi Picoult does a beautiful job of presenting the reader with themes that all human beings can identify with. Like the characters in the texts each of us have faced the idea of wanting individuality, each of us has struggled with the very complicated workings of a family unit, and most of us have, like the families in the two novels, experienced the way that love and loyalty can serve to get us through even some of the toughest most challenging obstacles. Works Cited Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper. New York, NY: Washington Square Press., 2004. Picoult, Jodi. The Tenth Circle. New York, NY: Washington Square Press., 2006. Read More