“The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted…”
So begins a novel that weaves imagery, suspense, and emotions into a rich web of thought and action: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. This book starts out simple, but as the storyline goes on, increasingly complex issues and conflicts arise. A young girl, Trisha McFarland, tries to find her way out of the woods in the northeastern United States. As she becomes hopelessly lost, she starts imagining that she is with pitcher Tom Gordon, and relies on him to help her survive.
At the beginning of the novel, Trisha is recapitulating over how she got lost in the woods. The narrator tells the reader about her parents’ divorce, the move, and about her teenage brother, Pete. She and Pete live with their mother in southern Maine. Pete is very unhappy because he has no friends and wants to go back to Boston and live with his father. Trisha’s mother takes Trisha and Pete to a hike in the northeastern portion of the Appalachian Trial. She and Pete argue the whole way, while Trisha daydreams that she is with Boston Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon.
On the trail, Trisha’s mother and Pete are still arguing. They pay no attention to Trisha, and finally, she gets tired of it. She sees a fork in the trail, and goes down the other way to get away from them. She thinks that it would be easy to get back, but soon, she gets lost. She wanders around some more, and gets farther and farther from the main path.
The Essay on From A Mother With Love
I am writing this slow because I know that you can’t read fast. We don’t live where we did when you left home. Your dad read in the paper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home so we moved. I won’t be able to send you the address, as the last family that lived here took the house numbers when they left so that they wouldn’t have to change their address. ...
After a while, Trisha finds that she has brought her Walkman. She listens to some stations, but there is nothing interesting on. She remembers that she read about finding one’s way out of the woods by water. She starts searching for a stream, which would eventually lead to the sea.
In the middle of the night, Trisha suddenly realizes that there is a thing in the woods. She feels that it is near her, and is extremely scared. She imagines Tom Gordon is guarding her, and soon, she is asleep again.
Trisha sees a torn–off deer’s head, and tries to get away. As she does this, she sees huge claw marks on a tree. She goes on, and sees more claw marks, and the rest of the deer. She walks west, trying to get as far away as possible from the mangled remains of the deer. Around this time, she imagines she sees Tom Gordon for the first time. The next day, Trisha imagines she sees three men in robes. One, in a black robe, with a misshapen head of wasps, tells her that he was the God of the Lost and he came from the thing in the woods. He says that the thing would get her. After Trisha walks some more, she sees more ripped–up trees and blood.
Soon, the border between Trisha’s imagination and real–life disappeared. She keeps on imagining things, such as deer hanging from trees, a crow hanging upside down from a branch, and a talking drowned face in a stream. In addition, Tom Gordon has become not her imagination, but her constant companion. Trisha comes to a post with a ringbolt on the top. Tom Gordon tells her that this is her last chance. She finds more posts, and finally gets to a road. Trisha walks along the road, and after about an hour, she finds the cab of a truck. When she tries to get in, she is hit with a cloud of dust, so she sleeps on the ground.
When Trisha wakes up two hours later, she hears the Thing in the woods. She runs to the cab, and falls asleep. In the morning, she sees a circle drawn around the cab: “The God of the Lost had come and drawn a circle around her as if to say, Stay clear—she is mine, she is my property”. When Trisha walks along the road that day, she knows that the Thing is constantly watching her, and later, when she sleeps with her walkman on, the Thing points at her, then goes away.
The next day, Trisha hears a truck. She gets to a dirt road and turns west. After 45 minutes of walking, she hears another, and she is now sure that she is almost there. However, before Trisha starts walking again, she turns around and sees the God of the Lost. Trisha, thinking fast, takes her Walkman and prepares it like a baseball towards the thing. It is startled, long enough so a hunter illegally in the woods shoots it with a rifle. It dies, and Trisha is finally safe.
The Essay on The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, and The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, are two novels set a century apart, yet they both connect to one another. Tim O’Brien’s novel illustrates his experience in the Vietnam War, while Stephen Crane’s novel demonstrates his experience in the Civil War. These two novels focus on the image one gives himself while going into the war and image one ...
The main, if not only, major character in this book is Trisha McFarland, a nine–year old girl. The whole story is centered around her and her quest to get out of the woods safely, and her running from the God of the Lost. The only other character in the book that plays a major role is Tom Gordon. He supports Trisha, even though he is just a part of Trisha’s imagination. However, he is sometimes not present to help Trisha in some perilous circumstances, and is not mentioned at the final showdown between Trisha and the Thing. On the other hand, he does play an important role; he helps Trisha find the path that eventually leads to her discovery, and supports her emotionally all the way along by answering her questions. Therefore, even though Trisha is the main character and the backbone of the whole story, and Tom Gordon is just a hallucination, Tom Gordon is the most influential character. He helps and supports Trisha a lot; without him, Trisha would not have gotten out of the woods.
I agree with the review by the New York Times. It states that the book is good, with a few flaws. According to the review, the major flaw is the fact that Stephen King relieved the tension a few times:
“More damagingly, King insists on several times stepping beyond Trisha’s point of view… While all of this information could easily have been conveyed in the context of Trisha’s experience … working it in as King has done only dissipates the narrative tension he has built.”
There did not need to be random sections explaining about Trisha’s family and the search; the parts about Francis Raymond Mazzerole and what he would do. It just makes the story less scary in parts. It wastes time, and it completely ruins the suspense. I also agree with the review when it says, “Still, reading the novel produces several satisfying moments of feverish terror…” For example, in the book: “It had watched her painful progress… Now it was through watching, through waiting. Slowly, both with terror and with a strange sort of calm inevitability, Trisha turned to face the God of the Lost”
The Term Paper on Stephen King Maine Time Man
Man Behind The Horror Stephen King Controlling Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to, in extensive detail, give you the faithful reader an understanding of one of the world's most prolific writers. There is a lot more to Stephen King then numerous best selling books and hit movies. He is a true genius in every sense of the word, and I rank him amongst the greatest writers of all time. I feel I ...
Overall, this book is an extremely interesting read. It offers a fully developed plot and a well–written storyline. It never gets confusing, and is short enough so many non–readers can taste the power of the novels of Stephen King. Finally, I congratulate Stephen King for writing such an interesting book, and I know that he will succeed without limit in the years to come.
