State Of Wonder Analysis

Great Essays
Tashia Adams
ENGWR 301
09 December 2015
Collins
Astounding Wonder Paul Sweeny once said, “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” Anyone knows that reading a good book will have you tucked away from the world anticipating what will happen next. When a person reads a good book they want to loan it to a friend so they can experience the thrill of reading a new book. Perhaps they wish that they were the person reading the book for the first time again. So that they could experience the joy of enjoying the thrill of reading a new book all over again. That is how reading Ann Patchett’s book State of Wonder made me feel. The Chicago Tribune describes State of Wonder as, “Ann
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Suspense is the main emotion I felt while I was reading this book. Ann Patchett does an amazing job of getting the reader to anticipate what will happen next while reading a State of Wonder. The first chapter alone already has you contemplating on what will happen. Especially when Mr. Fox calls and asks Marina about going to Brazil. Knowing that Dr. Swenson was also her former med- school professor. I believe that Dr. Singh would not have gone to Brazil on the idea alone of Mr. Fox asking her to go. If it hadn’t been for Karen Eckman pleading for her to go Marina would have stayed. The anticipation happens when the reader is thinking to his or herself will Dr. Singh go or will she not go. Just as writers have to have an attention grabbing intro to gain the audience’s attention, Ann Patchett’s first chapter was very interesting. For me personally if I don’t like the first chapter of a book I will not read the rest. That wasn’t the case with this book. It isn’t until the chapters’ progress that the reader gets more into the story. In Chapter 2 before Marina leaves for the Amazon, she gets prescribed drug that has side effects that include intense nightmares. After taking it, Marina realizes that the horrible dreams she had suffered as a child is caused by the same pills that she has been taking. The reason she was taking them was before every visit to see her father in India. She was a mixed child that had a Caucasian mother and an Indian father. Due to her biracial ethnicity it caused her to feel trapped between two worlds. Her nightmares had always been about being separated from her father, and “after so many dreams that were so much alike she became terrified of sleep”. Another suspenseful thing in this chapter is when we figure out what happened to Marina in med school. Turns out while in school, when Dr. Swenson had been her teacher, Marina was supposed

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