2/26

“The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon” is an novel that presents some interesting themes about God and how our lives our controlled.  In the beginning of the book Trisha feels as if she is completely out of the control of her fate.  This book is a classic man vs. nature struggle. Trisha must overcome the situation she is placed in, in order to survive.  Throughout the book Trisha learns to fend for herself in the wild and takes control of her destiny.  The whole time she thinks that the God of the lost is chasing her.  In order to get out of the woods she must confront this God of the lost. Even though Trisha is hallucinating, when she finally confronts the God of the Lost, she defeats him due to her own doing.   The Trisha that threw her walkman at the bear and scared him away was not that Trisha that got lost at the beginning.  

This book mainly presents the theme of determinism.  No matter what Trisha does, she is at the mercy of the woods.  Her hallucinations aid her in her survival but even Trisha still isn’t in control of her actions.  Although she is in control of her actions, most of them are due to the hallucinations that are brought upon her by her situation of being lost in the woods.  Therefore, every action that she takes that could be perceived as free will is actually influenced by the woods.  The food that she scavenges, the water she drinks, all are determined by her surroundings.  Even her crush on Tom Gorden is based on her surroundings, because if she wasn’t born a Boston Red Sox fan then she may not even be aware of Tom Gorden.  Her relationship with the God of the Lost is also interesting because he is perceived as the one in control of her fate, but he is also out to get her.  This can parallel to her relationship with the woods because it has complete control of her but it is slowly killing her.  Due to these revelations I believe that determinism is a main theme of this novel.