In The Orphan Train a life of hardship and loneliness bring a troubled seventeen year old Molly looking for belonging and acceptance and a lonely ninety-one year old woman with a secret past to find that they have more in common than just cleaning out an attic. Seventeen year old Molly has her gothic looks and vegan lifestyle that her foster parents are fed up with. After Molly is caught stealing a book from the library, she is sent to serve her community service at Vivian’s huge mansion helping the woman clean out her attic. As Molly and Vivian go through the boxes in Vivian’s attic they discover something more than some old junk; they discover their identities.
As Molly helps Vivian unpack the boxes in the attic, they are also unpacking Vivian's memories of her childhood. While they are doing this, Molly learns about Vivian’s identity through the objects. As they pull out objects, Vivan is able to remember where and/or who she got it from and the story that goes with the object. “Molly’s been surprised to find that she looks forward to it. Ninety-one years is a long time to live-there’s a lot of history in those boxes, and you never know what you’ll find. The other day for example, they went through a box of Christmas ornaments from the 1930s...Vivian told her stories about decorating the family store for the holidays, putting these ornaments on a real pine tree in the window.” (pg. 128) Molly thought that it would be torture to help Vivian go through her stuff in the attic, but Molly actually enjoyed herself. By going through the boxes in the attic, Molly discovered Vivian’s identity through objects
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We can see identity in The Orphan Train through quotes, thoughts, descriptions, beliefs, and expressions. The Orphan Train allows us to see identity in each of these that I described before throughout the book as we