The Girl On The Train

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-14

Chapters 15-21

Chapters 22-28

Chapters 29-38

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Authorial Context: Paula Hawkins’s Experience in Journalism

Hawkins was employed as a journalist for 15 years before becoming a novelist. She commuted to and from London, on the train, as a business reporter for The Times of London. Her interest in news, printed and digital, can be seen throughout the novel. For instance, as Rachel prepares to disembark from her train, she sees passengers, “folding newspapers and packing away tablets and e-readers as they prepare to disembark” (92). Throughout the novel, Hawkins mentions specific news outlets, like the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail, and Rachel’s thoughts reflect their varying reputations. Newspapers also inform how the novel is structured: Hawkins includes dates in each chapter, in the format that many newspapers use, e.g., “Sunday, August 18, 2013.” Hawkins also, initially, divides chapters into morning and evening sections, mirroring the morning and evening editions of newspapers.

News also develops the thematic ideas of memory and identity. In other words, news is something that people in the novel share—a collective record, or memory, of events. Large headlines can be seen by multiple people on newsstands, as well as on mobile devices. When Rachel can’t get her phone to load the news, she sees a headline about Megan on another train passenger’s tablet. He kindly asks, “Would you like to read the story?” (128), and hands her his tablet. The act of reading the news, like the act of riding the train, is something shared by the masses. Rachel specifically is comforted by being part of the news-reading crowd on the train.

Critical Context: The Psychology of Abuse

Within the novel, Tom acts as the abusive man archetype outlined by Lundy Bancroft in the seminal work on the subject, Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. The work states that an abusive man initially presents himself as an ideal partner. Hawkins’s novel demonstrates the three women at different stages of their relationship with Tom, including this initial, ideal-partner stage. Anna visualizes her perfect life with Tom; only the thought of defending her baby and the re-contextualization of herself as replaceable, rather than his real true love, brings her to act. Anna views the other women as the cause of Tom’s actions as a result of this impression.

Meanwhile, Rachel is a model of the self-blame of abuse. From Why Does He Do That?:

Chronic mistreatment gets people to doubt themselves. (...) Your abusive partner wants to deny your experience. He wants to pluck your view of reality out of your head and replace it with his. When someone has invaded your identity in this way enough times, you naturally start to lose your balance (Bancroft, 49).

This metaphoric loss of balance is further supported by the description of the role of alcohol and other drugs in abusive relationships. According to Bancroft, abusers project their issues with substance use disorders onto others. One of the example cases in the work is that of Shane and Amanda, where Shane uses Amanda’s alcohol use disorder to control her, supplying her with beer when she is trying to recover. Rachel’s escape from Tom’s control at the end of the novel comes with positive movement towards an addiction-free life, away from abuse.