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Rat Saw God Reflection

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The novel Rat Saw God by Rob Thomas follows a teen going through the trials and tribulations of high school. In the beginning Steve has a large group of friends, a 4.0 GPA, and a girlfriend, but now he 's flunking, stoned, and broken-hearted. The only way he can graduate is by writing an one-hundred paged essay about how he got from point A to point B. Through his process of writing this essay he comes to realize that you can 't ignore what you don’t want to face. One lesson Thomas is trying to teach us is sometimes you have to separate fiction from reality. In the beginning of the book, Steve lives in this fantasy that his family is perfect and that nothing bad could ever happen. However, once his parents got divorced he was forced into a new reality and didn 't know how to cope. In his mind he made his mom the victim and his dad the bad guy. Years later his sister, Sarah, tries to point him to the facts, "Haven 't you ever wondered how mom managed to meet someone so fast? Did you know she got married on the first day she legally could after the divorce was final?" After his sister told him this he was shocked and thought it was fake. Steve didn 't know how to face that reality so instead he mentally created a new fiction causing him to hate …show more content…

The author also uses a sprinkle of symbolism to support the theme. After the break up with Dub, he uses marijuana to enter yet another mental fiction. He uses drugs to just ignore reality and not have to face any real important problems simply because he was to hurt to go on (after he would fight with his dad he would get high). Finally, he gets back on the right track and you can tell he’s regaining his life because he stops doing drugs every time life gets tough. Overall, the author uses many ways to prove the same theme of, you must face reality and not slip into

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