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Themes & Metaphors permeating The
Trainer
What you will discover in The
Trainer in one form or fashion: Unrequited Love, Loyalty,
Vulnerability, Betrayal, Terrorism, Big Brother, Paranoia, Espionage,
Conspiracy, an ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance and an
extraordinary woman denying her demons.
I spent a
great deal of time threading and weaving icons and plot points into the story
that have double meaning. There are things that are simple and rather trite,
such as Robert's son saying “Daddy, you don’t
have the power to control this storm. It’s prehistoric.” Where
the storm represents Jacquelyn blowing into Rober’s life; where
Robert’s son foreshadows Robert’s loss of control over his life; and
where ‘prehistoric’ refers to Robert and Jacquelyn’s
relationship predating Robert’s family life.
And there are more subtle things such as Jacquelyn’s
relationship to smoking. In the beginning she’s a violent non-smoker,
keeping her lungs pure and sharply criticising anyone who would pollute their
body with destructive carcinogens. By the time she seeks out Robert to do her
bidding her lungs, like true intentions, are far from pure. She tells Robert,
“A life without vices is a life without
virtue.”
Of course there’s still
plenty of material that’s present for pure entertainment value. After a
long hard day at work, I don’t expect readers to engage in arduous
sleuthing for esoteric double meanings, so I leave plenty of fodder for good
ol’ fashioned escapism of the not terribly cerebral variety, such as in
this passage: Picking up a large, gaudy ring and slipping
it over his pinky, Robert asks Jacquelyn, “What’s this, a secret
decoder ring?” “No. It’s actually an extremely-low-frequency
transmitter. We call it the Elf Ring. It runs off an encapsulated plutonium
battery.” Robert removes the ring hurriedly, jerking it off his finger,
and sets it down, then slides it far away. Looking back at Jacquelyn, eyes
bulging out of his head, he says, “Glad to know my tax dollar is funding
atomic Elf Rings. Of course, you later find out that when the
transmitter ring is substituted for Robert’s wedding band, it represents
Jacquelyn’s desire to replace Angie. Ah, but who’s keeping track of
double meanings? |
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