A Visit From The Goon Squad Character Analysis

In A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, many of the characters in the book deal with events in their lives that impact the way they turn out in the future. Many of these characters have things that happen in their lives when they were children or adolescents that cause a change. The novel was written to show these changes by having the time periods of the chapters not in chronological order. The characters are shown in different parts in their life and shows how they came to be a certain way. One of the characters we see the most change in is Sasha Grady Blake. From the beginning of the first chapter, readers could tell Sasha is a complicated character. When we first meet her, she is just a girl trying to come to terms with herself. …show more content…
Sometimes it is hard to deal with certain things, which leads people to making bad decisions and living their life negatively. In A Visit from the Goon Squad, Sasha is a prime example of this. Sasha experienced a challenging childhood where she experienced fighting parents, abandonment, and abuse. This caused her to try and find ways to cope with her pain, but in trying to do so she went down a wrong path. Though Sasha is eventually able to wrap her head around things and come to terms with her trauma in the future, it takes a great deal of time and mistakes before she gets to that point. Sasha went down the path of self-destruction. She turned to drugs, stealing, self-harm, and using people for sex. Also as a result of living in an abusive environment and experiencing abandonment, it was hard for Sasha to form close relationships with people like her mom and Uncle Ted. Her past shaped who she became in her adolescent age and through her adulthood. Though she tried to deny the problems she had, it was clear to the readers that she had many of them. In short, negative experiences can change the way people are and the way they act. It can lead them down the wrong