Bailee Verhoeve
Mr. Connolly
ENG2D
17 December 2012
Question: How does
the violation of trust affect the main characters?
Trust is like Fine China
Trust is like fine china, once it is broken it can’t be repaired.
In the books, Taken by Norah
McClintock and The Watcher by James
Howe, the main characters’ trust is violated by someone close to them. The
violation of trust is the bases of the whole story. Thus, the main character is
affected by the violation of trust.
In the novel Taken the main character, Stephanie, has her trust violated by her
mom’s boyfriend. In normal situation one would assume that you would be able to
trust a man you mother is in love with and about to marry but not in Stephanie’s
case. After two kidnappings of girls who looks similar to Stephanie, Greg,
Stephanie’s mom’s boyfriend, kidnaps her, the following quote is of when
Stephanie finds out it was Greg who had kidnapped her;
“It was him, wasn’t it?’ I felt kind of shaky when I thought
about him. He had been practically living at my house. He had been going to
marry my mom. “He’s the serial killer.” “He’s the person who drugged you and
left you in that shack, Stephanie. He admitted to it. He didn’t have much
choice.’”(McClintock 159).
The second
person is a detective investigating Stephanie’s kidnapping after interrogating
Greg. Not only should Stephanie have been able to trust her soon to be
step-father but should have been able to trust her mother’s judgement on men. As
well as the fact that Stephanie made it known to her mother that she didn’t
like Greg and yet her mother continued to date him anyway. That was proven
through this quote; “I wanted to like him. I wanted to feel the same way I had
when I was lost and afraid. But he made it so hard.” (McClintock 139). This quote
shows that Stephanie is trying to like Greg but just doesn’t. Had Greg never
violated Stephanie’s trust there would be no story, thus proving that the
betrayal affects her in a large way. Also the prediction that she will probably
have trouble trusting men, and anyone for that matter, later on in life which affects
her greatly.
In the novel The Watcher we actually follow a couple characters but they all are
related to trust. The main character is Margaret and she is a very quiet girl
who is abused at home by her father. She should be able to trust her father to
think that her won’t hurt her but he does and she is too scared to tell anyone
until the end when Evan, Chris and a policeman catch Margaret’s father drowning
her in the sink and with all her might
Margaret manages “my father,” she said, “hurts me” (Howe 192). Her father
violates the implied trust that he won’t hurt his daughter but through trust of
Evan and Chris she is able to tell them what happens and we assume the problem
is fixed however because this is the last page we don’t really know. I predict
that Margaret’s father will go to jail and Margaret’s life will go on however
she will probably have trouble in life with trusting people and may end up in
an abusive relationship later in life. We also follow the story of Chris, an
eight-teen year old life guard living in the shadow of his brother who drowned
when he was young under the watch of his father. Because of this, Chris’s
father has never really loved him or trusted him because he can’t love another
son other than his first. He felt very responsible for what happened to his
first son. This is proven through this quote “I should have been there for him,
Tommy. I was supposed to watch out for him. I was his guardian angel.” (Howe
100).
Trust will take years to build up,
seconds to break and forever to fix. We are all affected by trust. We all trust
and all are trusted but in the end we are just a person. In the books Taken and The Watcher the main characters are clearly affected by trust
through the violation of their trust by someone who they should be able to
trust.
Howe, James 1946-. The Watcher. New York: Atheneum
for Young Readers, 1997. Print.
McClintock, Norah. Taken. Victoria, B.C.: Orca Book,
2009. Print.
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