The Tenth Circle is a novel by Jodi Picoult that tells the story of the Stone family. The story is set in the small town of Bethel, Maine. Daniel Stone is a comic book illustrator and his wife Laura is a college professor. Their daughter Trixie is a pretty and popular freshman at her high school, where her boyfriend Jason Underhill is easily one of the most popular boys.
A series of significant events takes place in this story. When Jason breaks up with Trixie, she is heartbroken. She even turns to self-mutilation (cutting herself). Laura is cheating on Daniel with one of her students, but she ended it. Trixie went to a party at her best friend Zephyr's house, where she says she was raped by Jason.
Daniel, who loves Trixie more than anything else in the world, is frantic because someone raped his daughter. I wrote more about this part of the book in my lit circle letter here. He is also extremely angry at Laura, who wasn't there for Trixie when she needed her the most. Instead, she was with her paramour that night, ending the affair.
Of course, Jason completely denies raping Trixie, saying it was consensual. The whole town of Bethel sides with Jason because he is the star hockey player at Bethel High School and in their town, hockey is the biggest sport. The detective investigating the rape, Mike Batholomew, understands Daniel's pain as a father because he lost his daughter in a car accident and was oblivious to her drug use until she was dead. Both fathers felt extremely guilty for not being able to protect their daughters.
A few weeks after Trixie returns to school, a topless picture of her from the night of the rape gets out. She tries to kill herself in the bathroom, but her mother finds her just in time. This becomes the last straw for Daniel, and he kidnaps Jason Underhill and nearly kills him.
After Trixie's suicide attempt, things spin out of control. Jason ends up falling off of a bridge. At first it was believed that he committed suicide, but evidence came up that linked Trixie to the scene of the crime. Trixie runs away to the Alaskan village that her father grew up in and eventually ran away from. I won't give away the ending to this book so I'll just get on answering a couple of these questions!
Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.
For this question, I have decided to choose two characters to analyze because I really can't analyze one without analyzing the other. In the book, they work as a team even in their darkest hour. Of course, I am talking about Daniel and Laura Stone, the parents of Trixie.
One would think that Trixie, being the rape victim, would be the main character of the story, but in my opinion, her parents play a much bigger role in the plot. Daniel is my favorite character. He has a mysterious past as a stereotypical "bad boy", being involved in drugs, alcohol, and violence. To go from that to a doting, mild-mannered, tactful suburban father is completely amazing. Daniel grew up as the only white kid in a small Alaskan village, where he was an outcast. After he fled to Bethel, he settled down for the love of his life, Laura. Ironically, him changing his ways is ultimately what drove Laura away from him.
Laura is a college professor at Monroe College, where her class about hell is very popular. Her class is based on Dante's Inferno, which describes the nine circles of hell. The book is called The Tenth Circle because Laura came up with a part of hell that was reserved for people who committed the worst sin of all: lying to themselves. This idea really sums up a lot of the book.
Laura's affair puts an obvious strain on her marriage to Daniel. They struggle with it because they obviously can't put their problems first during Trixie's time of need. Laura feels extremely guilty about everything while Daniel keeps everything bottled in because once he gets mad, he loses control and winds up turning back into the "animal" he was before.
There are so many unspoken aspects of Daniel and Laura's marriage that prove that they really were meant for each other, and maybe staying together through this time of turmoil is what made them realize that they really always needed each other.
If you've read other books by this same author, how does this one compare? (You don't need to decide which one is better, although you can.)
The last lit circle book that I read, My Sister's Keeper, was also written by the same author, Jodi Picoult. Both books are written extremely well, with intricate plots and characters with a lot of depth. Also, in both books, you really get a sense of each character's personalities and their perspectives. Here's the Monthly review that I wrote for My Sister's Keeper.
I feel that My Sister's Keeper is somewhat more organized than The Tenth Circle, only because the perspectives and stories from each character are all put in the section that tells the story from their perspective. The Tenth Circle is told from a third-person perspective at all times, so it may get confusing when each character recalls a memory when a different character just was being portrayed in the text.
Although My Sister's Keeper may be more organized, both books have amazingly written plots about dysfunctional families. Both stories also keep the reader satisfied with just the right amount of drama and suspense. In all honesty, I like My Sister's Keeper better because there is a lot more substance and the plot branches out a lot more. There is a main conflict, but there are also much more internal conflicts going on within the characters than in The Tenth Circle.A series of significant events takes place in this story. When Jason breaks up with Trixie, she is heartbroken. She even turns to self-mutilation (cutting herself). Laura is cheating on Daniel with one of her students, but she ended it. Trixie went to a party at her best friend Zephyr's house, where she says she was raped by Jason.
Daniel, who loves Trixie more than anything else in the world, is frantic because someone raped his daughter. I wrote more about this part of the book in my lit circle letter here. He is also extremely angry at Laura, who wasn't there for Trixie when she needed her the most. Instead, she was with her paramour that night, ending the affair.
Of course, Jason completely denies raping Trixie, saying it was consensual. The whole town of Bethel sides with Jason because he is the star hockey player at Bethel High School and in their town, hockey is the biggest sport. The detective investigating the rape, Mike Batholomew, understands Daniel's pain as a father because he lost his daughter in a car accident and was oblivious to her drug use until she was dead. Both fathers felt extremely guilty for not being able to protect their daughters.
A few weeks after Trixie returns to school, a topless picture of her from the night of the rape gets out. She tries to kill herself in the bathroom, but her mother finds her just in time. This becomes the last straw for Daniel, and he kidnaps Jason Underhill and nearly kills him.
After Trixie's suicide attempt, things spin out of control. Jason ends up falling off of a bridge. At first it was believed that he committed suicide, but evidence came up that linked Trixie to the scene of the crime. Trixie runs away to the Alaskan village that her father grew up in and eventually ran away from. I won't give away the ending to this book so I'll just get on answering a couple of these questions!
Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.
For this question, I have decided to choose two characters to analyze because I really can't analyze one without analyzing the other. In the book, they work as a team even in their darkest hour. Of course, I am talking about Daniel and Laura Stone, the parents of Trixie.
One would think that Trixie, being the rape victim, would be the main character of the story, but in my opinion, her parents play a much bigger role in the plot. Daniel is my favorite character. He has a mysterious past as a stereotypical "bad boy", being involved in drugs, alcohol, and violence. To go from that to a doting, mild-mannered, tactful suburban father is completely amazing. Daniel grew up as the only white kid in a small Alaskan village, where he was an outcast. After he fled to Bethel, he settled down for the love of his life, Laura. Ironically, him changing his ways is ultimately what drove Laura away from him.
Laura is a college professor at Monroe College, where her class about hell is very popular. Her class is based on Dante's Inferno, which describes the nine circles of hell. The book is called The Tenth Circle because Laura came up with a part of hell that was reserved for people who committed the worst sin of all: lying to themselves. This idea really sums up a lot of the book.
Laura's affair puts an obvious strain on her marriage to Daniel. They struggle with it because they obviously can't put their problems first during Trixie's time of need. Laura feels extremely guilty about everything while Daniel keeps everything bottled in because once he gets mad, he loses control and winds up turning back into the "animal" he was before.
There are so many unspoken aspects of Daniel and Laura's marriage that prove that they really were meant for each other, and maybe staying together through this time of turmoil is what made them realize that they really always needed each other.
If you've read other books by this same author, how does this one compare? (You don't need to decide which one is better, although you can.)
The last lit circle book that I read, My Sister's Keeper, was also written by the same author, Jodi Picoult. Both books are written extremely well, with intricate plots and characters with a lot of depth. Also, in both books, you really get a sense of each character's personalities and their perspectives. Here's the Monthly review that I wrote for My Sister's Keeper.
I feel that My Sister's Keeper is somewhat more organized than The Tenth Circle, only because the perspectives and stories from each character are all put in the section that tells the story from their perspective. The Tenth Circle is told from a third-person perspective at all times, so it may get confusing when each character recalls a memory when a different character just was being portrayed in the text.
The Tenth Circle is still a good book, but it doesn't evoke the same emotion that reading My Sister's Keeper does. Reading My Sister's Keeper puts questions of ethics into one's head that any other regular novel like The Tenth Circle could never do. Reading The Tenth Circle, I felt sympathetic to the pain that the Stone family went through, but the issues of that the Fitzgerald family faced seemed so much more significant than those of the Stone Family. Nevertheless, The Tenth Circle is still a wonderful book I would highly recommend.
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