Fainting

Jodi Picoult's "The Pact" is an interesting book. it is about two people, Emily and Chris,they've been inseparable since birth. They fall  in love, which was what their families wanted.But a tragedy brings an end to the families. The death of Emily Gold leaves the fingers pointing to Chris, her boyfriend. The families break apart and there are only 2 sides to the event: Chris's and the accusers. Even after finishing the book, my mind is left with questions. The who, what, when, where, why and how questions are in my head. But one of those questions stuck to me.

The author has Chris, the "supposed" killer of Emily, he faints three times throughout the timeline of this book. In the next three paragraphs, I'm going to explain why I think Jodi Picoult repeats the scene three times throughout the book.

The first time Chris faints is right after the shot that killed Emily, on page 3. I feel like the reason he fainted was because of being shocked and confused. Well, mostly shocked because his love of his life has just been shot in his arms. I mean, some events are actually really mind-triggering that make people want to go away. Emily has been with Chris for a very long time, and in the book, Chris's mother says this line, “He cuts himself,'...“And she bleeds." Chris and Emily are inseparable and since one of them got hurt during the "killing," the other feels the pain and automatically they can't do anything  The reason why I think the author had Chris faint after Emily's death is because she wanted the readers to feel that they were really close and that whatever happens to one of them, it happens to the other. 

The second time he faints is on page 215, this is where he finds out that Emily was pregnant with his child.  It is really sad that he didn't know about the child before hand. He says that he would have married Emily if he knew. But then, he thinks, "Maybe Jordan has been right; the pregnancy had been the thing that made her so depressed. But why? They could have gotten married and had the baby; they could have gone together for an abortion. Surely she would have known that they'd figure it out together.  Unless that was exactly what she was afraid of. All of a sudden a powerful rage shuddered through Chris. How dare she depend on him for one thing, but not the other." These lines come after his second fainting. I think that Chris is starting to get angry at Emily for not telling him. He htinks that he might have fixed it, but instead she decides to solbve it herself. Jodi puts the seocnd fainting after the news is out because she wants to give the readers somethig to think about. I mean, everybody in court thinks Chris killed Emily because he didn't want the baby. But now that the readers know, it'll twist the story plot.

Third, on page 386, nearing the end of the book, the judge declares Chris "not guilty." Chris faints after this. The reasons to why I think the author repeats it there is to stress how the trail has been on Chris. He did not if he was going to be convicyted of murder or let go. I mean, all the evidences points to him killing Emily, I mean, hell, if I was one of those 9 juries, I would have voted for "guilty." But Picoult also put the last fainting there to show that the decision could have went either way. Chris had no idea that he was "not guilty." In the end, Chris had a burden on his shoulders, not guilty or guilty, he stills feels the "jail smell " wherever he goes.

In the conclusion, I think Jodi Picoult repeats the event of Chris fainting several times throughout the book, to either stress how Chris is feeling, let the news seep into the reader or to create suspense. Over all, I think Chris has changed a lot throughout the book, form a young higher-schooler to a mature man. the author has done a great job writing the book, and honestly, I think she's one of my favorite authors.