Vicious Cycles in The Girl on the Train
The Girl on the Train is a thrilling, twisty mystery with a focus on a dark aspect of psychology.
This is not a review. See why. This article contains spoilers.
TW: domestic abuse
Context
Rachel’s life is in shambles. She got divorced two years ago due to her worsening alcoholism, which was exacerbated by her despair over being unable to have a baby. Her drinking also led to her being fired. Now, a directionless Rachel travels in and out of London each day so that her roommate/landlady will think she still has a job. Each time that she has an embarrassing encounter or makes any kind of mistake, she drinks to ease the pain—sometimes to the point of blackout, when she usually calls her ex-husband or shows up at his house.
Her main form of entertainment on the daily train rides is people-watching, especially the people whose homes she can see from the train. One couple, who live a few doors down from her ex-husband and his new wife and baby, catch her eye, and she imagines a whole backstory for them. Then tragedy strikes: The wife of that couple goes missing. Rachel is certain she was on their street that night, but she was drunk, and can only remember bits and pieces. Desperate to help the police find the missing woman (Megan), Rachel tells them what she observed about the couple from the train, becomes a client of Megan’s therapist, and even meets with Megan’s husband pretending to be a friend of hers. The quest gives Rachel a purpose and a reason not to drink, which helps her to probe her memories and discover the truth—about both Megan and about her own failed marriage.
Main Ideas:
Abuse can lead to vicious cycles of victimhood and self-sabotage.
Purpose can help break vicious cycles.
Abuse can lead to vicious cycles of victimhood and self-sabotage.
Eventually, Rachel discovers that she’d been repressing memories of abuse. Her drinking wasn’t only to cope with her infertility, but also the violence and her resulting fear. Her marriage had become a cycle of arguments, drunken blackouts—and guilt, which she accepted unquestioningly because she couldn’t remember what she had done the previous day. When the marriage ends, she blames herself. Constantly guilty and with practically nonexistent self-esteem, she drinks to hide from embarrassment, shame, boredom, loneliness, grief, and the knowledge that she should be trying harder to find a job. Rachel isn’t the cause of her own misfortune initially, but her loss of self-worth and feelings of betrayal makes her more susceptible to self-destructive coping mechanisms that don’t fix the problem but instead create new problems, such as substance abuse. The book details her struggles with this vicious cycle in graphic detail.
In a less intense version of a similar cycle, Megan has also never recovered from some trauma she suffered early in life. She was orphaned, and then her first serious boyfriend walked out on her at a time when she was especially vulnerable. As a result, she never felt she could entrust her heart or well-being to anyone. She moved restlessly from place to place and struggled with being loyal to her husband when she did eventually marry. Though less dramatic than Rachel’s struggles, Megan still works against her own happiness because of the unhealed wounds of her past.
Though the emotional effects of trauma are serious and lasting, it is nevertheless possible to work through them (sometimes with professional help) and make choices that are supportive of healing, rather than self-destructive. Unfortunately, Rachel and Megan rarely take such actions, and the book focuses more on trauma and self-sabotage than the means of healing such problems.
Purpose can help break vicious cycles.
Vicious cycles, especially those involving addiction, can seem impossible to break. If one bad thing leads to another, when does it end? In many cases, it can end with the introduction of purpose. Rachel goes through months of drinking and watching her life spiral out of control. She has few friends and little reason to think her life will ever improve. Though Megan is unknown to her, Rachel comes to think of her as the symbol of the perfect life: A beautiful, slim woman with good taste, a loving marriage, and enough money to savor slow mornings on her patio. Rachel knows her observations from the train, though arguably in poor taste, may provide the police with unique insight. She’s also desperate to remember anything she can from the night Megan went missing, and begins the difficult process of working through painful memories in therapy to do so. Despite the tenuous base of the connection she feels toward Megan, this process gives her a serious purpose, which enables her to end the cycle of drinking to avoid problems. The book, which has mostly been remarkably depressing, ends on a note of hope—with a clear-headed Rachel finally making serious progress toward sobriety.
Conclusion
The truth is the only thing that could set Rachel free—but the truth seems out of reach entirely, since her memory is as unreliable as she is as a narrator. The Girl on the Train is undeniably dark, focusing on crime, alcoholism, abuse, abandonment, and other forms of trauma and self-sabotage. The tone is similarly dark and gritty, with little positivity, beauty, optimism, or virtue to alleviate it. Nevertheless, it is a thrilling, twisty mystery, and those who enjoy such novels and don’t mind the dark psychology may enjoy it.