Water for Elephants

Brian Anzel                                    1/18/15
               Independent reading assignment#1


   The novel “Water for Elephants”, by Sara Gruen, has an interesting beginning. The main character is studying at Cornell to be a veterinarian like his father, but everything changed for him when the dean comes into the classroom. He tells him that his parents died. After that, Jacob travels back to his hometown, so he can identify the bodies. He feels alone, so he travels in the woods until he sees a train. He goes into the train and learns that it’s a circus train. Since he has nothing else to do, he joins them.

   The author tries to grab the reader’s attention by displaying a shocking image immediately at the start of the novel. The author definitely grabs our attention. Having your parents die is one of the most scariest things anyone could have happen to them. Since we never want it to happen to us, we want to learn about someone else’s experience because we are curious of how they deal with the situation. In this case, the narrator is at a weak point in his life, so he is willing to do anything to keep his mind off of what happened to him. The circus is perfect for someone like Jacob, the main character, because there is so much excitement and new people. On page 31, Jacob said, “The rich scent of concessions and activities filled my nostrils with a false sense of bliss”. This quotation shows that even though jacob is in a happy place, he would never be the same again without his mom and dad.

   The Novel frequently switches from the present to the past, as in the present, Jacob is 90 and in a retirement home, while in the past, he is 23. In the present, he is a boring old man, so the author’s purpose there isn’t to grab your attention, because when he was 23, he life is a lot more exciting. Showing the present is to tie the story together, while the past is the interesting part.

   “Water for Elephants”’s author grabs your attention at the start of this novel. This setting and character development stage in a novel is usually slow and boring, but this one is shocking and in a way somewhat relatable to some people. The fact that the author included serious and real horror aspects of life into a fictional novel proves that this book was meant to be attention grabbing.