Heading home
Ruby plots to run-away from Jamie and Cora's house and her new life. Cora's house has every thing Ruby could possibly need but she wants to set off on a quest to run-away. So how is this quest set up.
Quester: Ruby
Place to go: Ruby first wants to go back to the yellow house to get closure and grab a few of her things, but she wants to call a friend to take her away. She never states the actual destination but the yellow house is one stop along the way.
Stated Reason to go: Ruby feels like a burden on her sisters new life. After Cora left for college the sisters lost touch. They didn't contact each other for a long time, and Ruby thinks it is because Cora wants to abandon all aspects of her old life. Cora didn't even invite them to her wedding or graduation. So Ruby feels unwelcome in Cora's life. She thinks the only reason Cora is letting her come live with them is because she has to. But Ruby doesn't know that Cora fought and fought to try to save Ruby from their mother, but she failed because they moved around a lot and she couldn't keep up with the changing phone numbers and addresses.
Challenges in Route: The first challenge was waiting until the middle of the night, then she had to sneak out of the alarmed house but luckily the alarm wasn't set. Then Jamie and Roscoe, the dog, are outside. Ruby goes around the side of the house until Jamie and Roscoe go inside. When she thinks she's in the clear, Roscoe comes darting out the dogie door. Then there's the Fence. She tries to go over the fence and only her bag makes it over before Roscoe brings Jamie out to investigate. Then there's the boy in the pool, Nate, who actually proves to be more help than a challenge, as he provides her cover. She goes back inside to her room as this get away fails.
Real Reason to Go: The real reason to go is always self knowledge. Although she fails, through the course of the book she learns about her sisters attempts to save her, meets Nate and falls in love, and finds the true meaning of family, so it really all works out in the end.
Quester: Ruby
Place to go: Ruby first wants to go back to the yellow house to get closure and grab a few of her things, but she wants to call a friend to take her away. She never states the actual destination but the yellow house is one stop along the way.
Stated Reason to go: Ruby feels like a burden on her sisters new life. After Cora left for college the sisters lost touch. They didn't contact each other for a long time, and Ruby thinks it is because Cora wants to abandon all aspects of her old life. Cora didn't even invite them to her wedding or graduation. So Ruby feels unwelcome in Cora's life. She thinks the only reason Cora is letting her come live with them is because she has to. But Ruby doesn't know that Cora fought and fought to try to save Ruby from their mother, but she failed because they moved around a lot and she couldn't keep up with the changing phone numbers and addresses.
Challenges in Route: The first challenge was waiting until the middle of the night, then she had to sneak out of the alarmed house but luckily the alarm wasn't set. Then Jamie and Roscoe, the dog, are outside. Ruby goes around the side of the house until Jamie and Roscoe go inside. When she thinks she's in the clear, Roscoe comes darting out the dogie door. Then there's the Fence. She tries to go over the fence and only her bag makes it over before Roscoe brings Jamie out to investigate. Then there's the boy in the pool, Nate, who actually proves to be more help than a challenge, as he provides her cover. She goes back inside to her room as this get away fails.
Real Reason to Go: The real reason to go is always self knowledge. Although she fails, through the course of the book she learns about her sisters attempts to save her, meets Nate and falls in love, and finds the true meaning of family, so it really all works out in the end.
The Yellow House
Colors are small seemingly unimportant details, but each color has a connotation behind it making them important. As a reader, lookout whenever an author includes color, especially when naming something, like the yellow house, its important. Yellow has multiple connotations including, love, happiness, warmth, hope, positivity and intellectual stimulation also cowardice. So, why did Sarah Dessen choose to make Ruby's old house yellow? The Yellow House seems like a terrible place to live, the kitchen sink doesn't work, its dirty, crawling with roaches, dirty dishes piled up, and no heating, so what makes this place so happy? Well for Ruby she is happy there because it is home. For most adolescents being abandoned in a disgusting house, not knowing where your mother is, sounds scary, but Ruby felt safe there because it's where she feels comfortable. She doesn't feel right in this new big house with everything she needs because it's not what she's used to. It is Ironic that yellow connotates warmth considering the house has no heating, but home has warm feelings of security and belonging for Ruby. But is the yellow house also where Ruby developed her cowardice about opening up to other people? Ruby keeps to herself a lot. I think this comes from the years of independence and keeping secrets at the yellow house. Her mother was never much of a mother to her or Cora and both girls grew up very independently. Ruby also had to keep secrets growing up to keep from getting caught not only living alone but also living with a drunk mother and not always keeping up with rent or utilities. Ruby is used to not sharing all the details of her life with other people because of her experiences at the yellow house, so now she is afraid to open up to other people, hence her social cowardice.
Is Jamie Mark Zuckerburg?
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In some of Sarah Dessen’s novels she refers to “UMe.com”. UMe is basically Facebook, its described as, “the networking site that it seemed like everyone from your favorite band to your grandmother had gotten onto in the last year or so.” (Dessen 40). So in theory, if UMe is Facebook Jamie could be considered Mark Zuckerburg, the creator of Facebook. Mark Zuckerburg along with five cofounders launched Facebook from their college dorms at Harvard. In 2004 they launched Facebook.com and by 2007 Zuckerburg became a billionaire as a result.. Like Zuckerburg, Jamie is the CEO of UMe.com. Jamie told Ruby that he started it with a few guys when he was just out of college. Sound familiar? The book doesn’t specifically say how rich Jamie is, but from the description of his house, his donation of a soccer complex to Perkins Day, Ruby’s school and his former high school, and the popularity of UMe, it is probable that Jamie has wealth similar to Mark Zuckerburg. It seems as though Jamie’s character was based on that of Mark Zuckerburg, considering their background is remarkably similar.
Comparison to A thousand Splendid Suns
Ruby and Nate are comparable to Laila and Tariq from Khaled Hosseni's One Thousand Splendid Suns. They are both young romances with the whole boy-next-door scenario. Ruby and Nate and Laila and Tariq both live near each other, in Laila and Tariq's case they live down the street, Ruby and Nate's houses back up. While Laila and Tariq grew up together, Ruby and Nate just met. In both situation the boy helps the girl. For Laila, Tariq comes back and rescues her from Rasheed, while Nate helps cover for Ruby when she almost gets caught running away. Both cases have some abuse. In One Thousand Splendid Suns Laila is constantly abused by Rasheed, at one point she is even abused for seeing Tariq. In Lock and Key Nate is abused by his Dad. In both cases their counterpart provides some solace and safety. Tariq takes Laila away from Rasheed and all the torture she has suffered in Afghanistan and Ruby encourages Nate to seek help and encourages him to leave to live with his mother. To a point both Laila and Ruby are independent because Laila is more bold and wants to be independent, but Laila's independence is limited because women ins Afghanistan can't do much without a man, and she is dependent on Mariam for guidance. On the other hand Ruby was never really able to depend on her mother while Laila had a good birth mother and becomes dependent on Mariam as she becomes a motherly figure for Laila. At the end of both books the pairs find a place to be together, for Laila and Tariq it is moving back to their home in Afghanistan. For Ruby and Nate they find out they got accepted to the same college.
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Nate Christ Figure or Not?
It is arguable that Nate could be a Christ figure but I think more than likely he just has a few Christ-like qualities. Nate is not thirty three years old, he has no wounds in the side or hands, he is not in the wilderness nor is he tested there and since this is just your average, basic love story, no he is not crucified or killed in any way. Yes, he is not married just like Christ was not married but he is a seventeen year old boy so if he was married this whole story would change from cute and romantic to quite weird. Now, you could argue that Nate is in agony, since he is abused by his father that could be considered agonizing like Christ. He never walked on water but he does swim a lot. In fact when he is first introduced he is swimming. His swimming could possibly be a Christ-like attribute since Christ was baptized but more than likely he is just a swimmer and we never saw Nate before swimming to conclude he changed in any way as a baptism would require. It is a long shot to say his arms were often out stretched since he was swimming and you stretch your arms out to swim, concluding this would be trying to make something out of nothing. Nate is never in the presence of children so we can't say he's good with children. Nate is employed to his father like Jesus was employed to his father but Nate is not a carpenter. He most definitely does not have modest means of transportation driving all over town in his Tahoe. I wouldn't say Nate has followers or disciples but he does have friends and loyal customers like Harriet. The strongest piece of evidence that Nate could be a Christ figure is his saving Ruby. He saves her first when she is almost caught running away and he provides her excuse. He saves her again when she is walking from Perkins Day to the yellow house and he offers to give her a ride. Personally I don't think this was in any way trying to save her but really he was just being kind and chivalrous. While one could argue Nate is a Christ figure it would be quite a stretch. Dessen was just trying to make a nice attractive boy for the whole boy-next-door scenario to play out more than she was trying to create a character to save mankind.
The Key and Independent women
Independence is a key theme in this book and the key symbolizes independence and independence is also a common character trait between Harriet and Ruby. Ruby wears a key around her neck to her old house. The key is symbolic of her independence and the way she keeps to herself,keeping her past locked up inside her. The single key on a single chain is somewhat rugged yet simple and beautiful. Then she starts working for Harriet, Harriet is a strong independent woman very much like Ruby, they even have the same red hair. Harriet doesn't want help and finds it hard to allow someone else to help her when she was doing just fine on her own. Just like Ruby doesn't want Cora's help since she was perfectly fine in the yellow house, Harriet doesn't want Ruby's help since her business is doing perfectly fine on her own. Part of their independence is that both characters at this point don't really have a family and are used to making do on their own. But both characters realize they needed the help.They key comes into play when many of Harriet's customers ask about Ruby's pendent and they start a whole line of keys. The keys are symbolic of people and their "locked" pasts. For Harriet and Ruby they both have a self-sufficient independent past that they are gradually over coming. Both Harriet and Ruby find love, Nate for Ruby and Reggie for Harriet. Both women gradually relax and open up more, they become more trusting of others and more dependent on others which can be a good thing. When Nate leaves Ruby gives him her necklace with the key to Jamie and Cora's house instead of the yellow house. This action symbolizes her giving Nate a place he can always come back to if necessary, the security the key has held for Ruby all these years. It also symbolizes her letting go of her past and giving it to someone else. At the end of the novel she takes the key to the yellow house and throws it into the pond because she realizes that she no longer needs the security of the yellow house to fall back on, and she doesn't have to be self sufficient any longer because she has finally found a family of people to care for her providing for her much more than the yellow house ever did.