Orphan Train Character Analysis

Molly, one of the main characters in Orphan Train, has to serve community service hours for a crime that she committed. In order for her to get those hours done, her boyfriend gets his mom to help her out. She assigned her to an old lady’s house, who wants to clean out her attic and needs some help. “Molly has decided to think of this job as indentured servitude” (Kline 52). She just wants to go in and get her hours done as soon as possible. As you continue to read the novel, you figure out that they have a lot of things in common. The author, Christina Baker Kline, builds a strong relationship between the teenager and the elderly woman throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Molly goes over to Vivian’s house for an interview. From the start, Molly was trying to impress …show more content…
Going back and forth from Vivian’s life as a little girl, and to Molly’s life and Vivian’s life as an elder, she shows both stories. Molly admits that cleaning out the attic wasn’t as bad as she thought. “I like her. She’s kind of cool” (Kline 128). You can just tell by the conversations they are having now, compared to what they were having at the beginning, that they have gotten closer and they don’t mind each other’s company. As they go through the boxes, Vivian just lets go and tells Molly all about her life. Before she realizes it, Molly knows everything there is to know about Vivian. She has never told anyone about it before. Molly wants to give something back to Vivian for letting her do her community service hours with her. Molly really cares about her now. Hearing all about Vivian’s life, Molly knows just what she wants to do to help. She wants to do research to try to learn more about what happened to her family and to try to find them. Her family got separated after a fire when she was really little and she was alone after that. Molly wants to find out what actually might have happened to