Elizabeth Gooch

Elizabeth Gooch
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
Realistic Fiction
Just Right
309


1. I am currently reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. This book is following two plot lines. The first is of the main character Jacob and his life as an old man in a nursing home. Here in the home, he doesn't really have any friends and comes off as pretty harsh to others. He is extremely old and hates this home that his children put him in. Then he starts to reflect on his life and of the time that he was in circus. This is when the other plot comes in, as it follows the story of Jacob's life as a young adult when he joins the circus as a vet. In the beginning he tells us of how he was at Cornell college getting a degree to be a vet and then a tragedy happens and both of his parents are killed in a car accident. Everything starts to go downhill from there, he drops out of school, losses his house to the bank and has no other family members. As he is walking along a railroad he decides to hop onto the oncoming train. Little did he know that this was the Benzini Brothers most Spectacular Show in the World circus train! Here he becomes the shows vet and falls in love with August's (who is the boss) wife, Marlena. Marlena and Jacob start to bond when the show get an elephant, Rosie which they both care for very much, and August does not. Rosie starts to then return the favor to Marlena and Jacob by protecting them and obeying them. The two plot lines alternate throughout the book.

2. I find this book to be very interesting in terms of character and plot. Especially the main character Jacob and all the circus people he meets. I feel that the author is puling me in as a reader with the strange personalities all of the circus people. Most of them come off harsh but become kinder as you get to know them, and other are much softer and sweeter. I find this diversity pulling me in as a reader. Another thing that is keeping me interested would be the fact that this book is about a circus but a different kind of circus then I would have originally thought. I find all the performers and crew workers lives to be so different from mine, and I enjoy reading about there's. This is a new author to me.

3. I think that one of the main themes of this book is Wisdom of Experience. I think this theme appears mostly within the main character Jacob. Because of this book's unique plot lines that switch between Jacob's life as an old man and the story of his life in the circus I think this theme appears in both plots. This theme first appears in the beginning of the book when he is in the nursing home and while eating dinner a new man comes to sit by him. Eventually, this man starts talking about the circus that was coming to town and how he used to work for it. This upsets Jacob because he knows this man didn't work for the circus, because he did. Also, he gets frustrated that everyone else seems to side with this new man instead of Jacob. This is showing Wisdom of Experience because Jacob knew this other man couldn't have been in the circus because he didn't have the marks that most workers had, or the right details that Jacob knew because of his experience in the circus. This theme appears again while in the story of Jacob's life in the circus. For example, when the elephant Rosie starts acting up Jacob knows that August will beat her with the bull hook because of all the anger outbursts he gets. Because of his pasts experiences with August's anger he tries to stop August, but unfortunately fails to do so. This theme seems to appear in many places throughout the novel.

4. My favorite character in this book is Marlena, who is August's wife. I like Marlena because of how caring and thoughtful she is towards animals. For example, when her horse Silver Star had too be shot, she knew it was the right thing to do to put him out of his misery even though she loved that horse. She also cared for Rosie and took care of her when August hurt her. Also, I liked her because of how she would stand up to August when he did something rude or hurtful to someone else. She would be doing this throughout the book. She also knew that leaving August was the right thing to do in the end, even if it may take a while. Overall, I like Marlena because of her love for animals and the courage she has to stand up against August.

5. My least favorite character would have to be August. I don't like August because of how cruel he is too animals. He seems to get these random outbursts of anger and takes it out on anyone or anything. Such as the time he beat Rosie when she wouldn't obey him. He also can be quite rude to Marlena or Jacob whenever he is in a bad mood. He seems to make fun of Jacob a lot, and turns things into bad jokes that were meant to be hurtful. I think he always takes things too far and doesn't know how to control himself and when Marlena tries to disagree with him he'll let his anger out on her. August is an ill-tempered man that is abusive to both animals and people.

6. I have just left off in the book at the part when an alarm goes off called the Disaster March. Although, I don't know what went wrong I think that maybe Rosie got hit by August again and lost it. I predict that they are having this alarm because Rosie is going crazy under the big top and hurting some of the audience members by accident. Possibly, she could have hurt Marlena as well. I think they will all have to evacuate and perhaps Rosie will then have to be put down which would upset Marlena and Jacob.