Theme Symbolism for Elephants
Usually in a novel, a theme is something that helps the reader infer what the main ideas are by finding common threads throughout the story. In the novel, Water for Elephants, the theme of love is hard to miss, despite all the circus cruelties and tragedies. Young Jacob falls instantly in love with Marlena, the trick horse rider. Later Marlena works with Rosie, the elephant, with whom both Jacob and Marlena fall in love. It is their love of animals that pulls the two love-birds together. Marlena and Jacob’s love is bothered by the fact that Marlena is already married to August. But they have so much in common, that it is hard for them not to be friends. Their friendship grows stronger when August’s abuse of the animals, and later his abuse of Marlena and Jacob, unites
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Jacob does not want to lie in bed and wait for death to hit him, while the rest of the nursing home residents are thinking they’re having the time of their life, eating old cooked food. When a circus puts itself across the street from the home, Jacob’s memories are frazzled. He wants to go out into the world, away from the nursing home that is holding him hostage. Jacob is filled with lots of courage, though. Living in this facility, Jacob does get tired, but doesn’t give up. “I'm parked in the hallway with my walker. I've come a long way since my hip fracture, and thank the Lord for that. For a while it looked like I wouldn't walk again – that's how I got talked into coming here in the first place – but every couple of hours I get up and walk a few steps, and with every day I get a little bit farther before feeling the need to turn around. There may be life in the old dog yet.” (Gruen 7) Old Jacob tries and tries and tries, and is keeping himself