The Girl On The Train

“Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis.”

From the train, Rachel sees the first part of this sentence as graffiti on the side of a building. She dwells on how it describes life and adds the idea about death. Death is not just an aside, she thinks, but a more central part of life.

“Runaway, lover, wife, waitress, gallery manager, nanny, and a few more in between. So who do I want to be tomorrow?”

Here, Megan considers her different occupations and relationships—the roles she’s taken on in the past—and her capacity to change in the future. Later in the novel, shortly before her murder, Megan supplies another list, but one that focuses on relationships, specifically how she desires to take on the role of good mother in the future, as opposed to being a bad mother in the past. This earlier quote gives more context about her working life.

“I feel a real sense of disappointment, I feel as though I have been cheated on. A familiar ache fills my chest. I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. I found out the way everyone seems to find out these days: an electronic slip.”

This passage is Rachel’s reaction to seeing Megan kiss someone other than her husband. Rachel sympathizes with Scott because he is the one being cheated on, like she was. Rachel’s discovery of Tom’s infidelity through his email foreshadows how Anna discovers Tom’s affair with Megan—an electronic slip of leaving Megan’s cell phone in his gym bag.

“I’m going to tell her that the line he used with her—don’t expect me to be sane—he used it with me, too, when we were first together. [...] It’s not even his line: he stole it from Henry Miller. Everything she has is secondhand.”

This quote develops the theme of Tom’s coercion causing conflict between women. Tom is an unoriginal liar: He uses the same stolen line on all the women he seduces. He wants them to compete for his attention and controls them through conflating them with one another, or not definitively placing one above the other.

“I ran home and through the house and down to the tracks, then I sat down there, waiting for the train to come, to rattle through me and take away the other noises.”

This passage also develops the train symbolism in the novel. Here Megan is comforted by the train; like Rachel, she sees it as a source of safety. However, Megan’s comfort is not related to being on the train, like Rachel, but being near it and watching it from the other side.

“I have a memory of ducking down to avoid a blow, raising my hands. Is that a real memory?”

Here, Rachel tries to piece together her memories of the night Megan died. This develops the theme about memory and substance use disorders. Rachel’s blackout drinking leaves blanks in her past, and Tom took advantage of this by gaslighting her about what happened during those blackouts. She does not remember that he is the one who hit her before getting in his car with Megan; she even questions if her memory of violence is true.

“There was an old railway track running along one side of the property. At night I’d lie awake—I was always buzzing then, we were smoking a lot—and I used to imagine I could hear the trains, I used to be so sure, I’d get up and go outside and look for the lights.”

This is from one of Megan’s therapy sessions with Kamal. She tells him about the place where she lived with Mac in Holkham. Both this location and number 15 are situated near train tracks, but the symbolism around the Holkham train is darker. It represents the past, fantasy, and death, in that she uses it to hint at losing her daughter with Mac.

“I’m the outsider, I don’t belong there, and yet everything is so familiar to me.”

In this passage, Rachel visits Witney to try to regain her memory of the night Megan died. She walks the streets as a former resident of number 23, feeling paradoxically like she does not belong. Tom convinced her, through gaslighting and violence, that she is unworthy because she has an alcohol use disorder, is infertile, and is a divorcee.

“Parents don’t care about anything but their children. They are the centre of the universe; they are all that really counts. Nobody else is important, no one else’s suffering or joy matters, none of it is real.”

This is part of Rachel’s reverie about learning—through Facebook—that Anna and Tom had a baby. It foreshadows how, in the end, Tom controls Anna by holding the baby. Anna is willing, almost happy, to sacrifice Rachel’s life for the life of her child.

“The train slowly rolled past and I looked out towards the tracks. I felt dizzy, as though I were having an out-of-body experience, as though I were looking at myself.”

When Rachel visits number 15 (Scott’s house), she sees a train pass. This is the same train that she looked out of during many rides, and the experience of being in the place she looked at is disorienting. Her desire for a life of usefulness, rather than her current unemployed and traumatized day-to-day experience, fueled her desire to talk to Scott.

“How much better life must have been for jealous drunks before emails and texts and mobile phones, before all this electronica and the traces it leaves.”

Rachel considers the effects of technology on relationships. She and Anna both find out about Tom’s infidelity through electronics. After their divorce, Rachel continues to fixate on Tom, and technology makes that easier for her to do.

“In the morning, I take the 8:04, and in the evening, I come back on the 5:56. That’s my train. It’s the one I take. That’s the way it is.”

In this passage, Rachel explains the schedule she kept even after losing her job. To Rachel, trains symbolize the comfort of ritual and routine. Trains are an omnipresent part of life for people living in the suburbs of London, as well as other cities.

“He wouldn’t know how to forgive me. Please, Kamal. If I don’t spit out the poison, I feel like I’ll never sleep.”

Here, Megan reveals her fear that Scott’s opinion of her will change if he learns about the death of her daughter. Repressing, rather than discussing, the feelings about this traumatic loss contributes to her insomnia. Her memories haunt her, developing the theme of memory and trauma.

“I didn’t buy the paper, but I couldn’t resist reading the story online.”

When Anna sees the same headline as Rachel about Megan killing her infant, she switches mediums to get the details, more unwilling to leave a paper trail than to spend the money. This speaks to Hawkins’s past as a journalist. News outlets offer a collective and public memory of events, as opposed to individual memories that are corrupted by substance use disorders and/or trauma.

“‘She liked to sit out there and watch the trains.’ ‘I know,’ I say, putting my hand on his arm. ‘I used to see her there sometimes.’”

In this dialogue between Scott and Rachel, they discuss Megan’s love of trains. Scott saw Megan from inside number 15, while Rachel saw her from the train, in some of the same moments as Scott. This connection is one thing that leads to Scott and Rachel sleeping together.

“It’s the thing I dread, the thing that keeps me awake: the feeling of being alone in that house.”

Megan shares her greatest fear with Kamal in this passage. This comes from a memory that haunts her: Mac (the baby’s father) not coming home after the accidental death of her baby. This develops the theme of how trauma affects memory.

“I couldn’t bear to have other images in my head, yet more memories that I can’t trust, memories that merge and morph and shift, fooling me into believe that what is is not, telling me to look one way when really I should be looking another way.”

When trying to recover her memories, Rachel considers hypnosis. However, once she hears that hypnotists can create false memories, Rachel abandons the idea. The actions of a manipulative hypnotist can be compared with how Tom exploits Rachel’s alcohol use disorder and lies to her about what she did while blackout drunk.

“Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s how irresistible you are.”

Anna considers her previous role as Tom’s mistress, before she became his wife and mother of his child. This speaks to both the theme of longing for another life and the theme of a man creating conflict between women.

“I’m doing the things she did: drinking alone and snooping on him. The things she did and he hated.” 

Anna compares herself to Rachel. While Rachel has an alcohol use disorder, Tom lies to Anna about Rachel’s “snooping” behavior. Rachel, unlike Anna, did not try to guess Tom’s password, but she saw his emails with Anna when checking his calendar to plan a surprise vacation. Tom did not use emails with Megan; Anna discovers their affair through Megan’s cell phone in Tom’s gym bag.

“I do remember, it’s just that I had confused two memories. I’d inserted the image of Anna, walking away from me in her blue dress, into another scenario: Tom and a woman getting into a car. Because of course that woman wasn’t wearing a blue dress, she was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. She was Megan.”

This passage is the moment when Rachel has a breakthrough in the process of recovering her memory. Her drinking, as well as Tom giving her a traumatic head injury, kept her from realizing what she saw the night of Megan’s disappearance. It took Rachel over a month to access her memory.

“I didn’t want him to leave his wife; I just wanted him to want to leave her. To want me that much.”

Megan and Anna can be compared in terms of their desires as Tom’s mistress. Anna wanted to offer Tom an escape from Rachel, based on his lies about her. Megan, unlike Anna, was already married when she began sleeping with Tom; she wanted an escape for herself and to feel desirable.

“This is what he does—this is what he always does. He’s a master at it, making me feel as though everything is my fault, making me feel worthless.”

Here, Rachel describes Tom gaslighting her. Up until the time of his death, he blames Rachel for his problems and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. He uses Rachel as a scapegoat and destroys her self-image.

“You’re like one of those dogs, the unwanted ones that have been mistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kick them, but they’ll still come back to you, cringing and wagging their tails. Begging. Hoping that this time it’ll be different, that this time they’ll do something right and you’ll love them.”

This passage is Tom speaking to Rachel. It alludes to a famous passage from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Helena calls herself Demetrius’ dog, pursuing him despite him casting her aside for another woman. Tom’s mistreatment of Rachel traumatizes her, leading her to believe she is unworthy of a better situation—of real love.