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Rachel: Four
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl on the Train, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Women and Society
Gaslighting, Memory, Repression, and the Self
Addiction, Dependency, and Abuse
Secrets and Lies
Motherhood, Duty, and Care
Summary
Analysis
Thursday, March 7, 2013. Megan and her unnamed lover are in a hotel bed. They daydream aloud about taking a vacation together, and as the conversation shifts to more intimate discussions about family and relationships, Megan feels that she’s getting somewhere new with this man. As he talks about his own feelings of emptiness, she considers her own hollowness. Soon, Megan realizes that her lover has fallen asleep.
Hawkins continues to purposefully hold back the identity of Megan’s lover in order to prolong and deepen the mystery of Megan’s impending disappearance. Megan is stepping outside the bounds of society and keeping secrets from her husband—secrets that will likely only spiral out of control.
Themes
Friday, March 8, 2013. Scott brings Megan coffee on the terrace. He kisses her neck and observes that she slept well the night before—a rarity. He asks her if therapy is working. Megan responds that therapy isn’t as simple as getting “fixed”—it’s a process. Scott asks Megan if she is going to continue with her sessions. Megan privately reflects on the restlessness that fills her days—she worries one day she’ll “end up […] by [the train] tracks, because there’s nowhere left to go.” As Scott heads to work, he tells Megan that he loves her. Megan waits until the door closes to cry.
Megan feels continual, unrelenting pressure from Scott to embody his—and society’s—ideals of how a woman should behave. Her emotional trauma and sense of restlessness run counter to those ideals, leading Megan to resent herself—and to long, at least in part, for her own destruction. Her worry about “ending up by the train tracks” is disturbing and prescient given that her disappearance is seemingly connected to Rachel’s memories at the Witney station.
Themes
