Tom Gordon Quote Logs

“…but they ignored her and after awhile she had simply sat in the back seat with Mona on her lap and her knapsack beside her, listening to them argue and wondering if she herself might cry, or actually go crazy” (King 10).

At this part in the novel Trisha was with her family and they were on their way to the place they were going to go hiking. Her brother and mother always fought with each other and she always just felt so alone. This was because with her mother and brother fighting they never really paid any attention to her. This hurt Trisha’s esteem because of the actions of her family, which made her feel like she was useless. She felt so useless because her family would not even take any time away to listen to her. This is what caused Trisha to begin to cry. All she really wanted was her family to be nice and pay some attention to her. That is basically what the esteem level in Maslow’s Hierarchy. “…needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others.” Esteem is based on respect from others and her family was not giving her any respect. It is very unclear whether or not Trisha could ever recover from this but she just seems to move on.

“She was suddenly drowning in isolation, choking on a bright and yet oppressive sense of herself as a living being cast out from her fellows” (King 33).

At this part in the novel Trisha had been in the woods for multiple hours. She had not been around any person for a substantial amount of time. She began to fade away from the third level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Trisha was not hungry and had her physiological needs met, she was secure somewhat to fill the safety needs, but she could not get past the need for love, affection, and belongingness. There was no way for Trisha to meet this because she was alone lost in the woods where no one could get to her. That is the problem with this and even the esteem level; there is reliance on other people to fulfill the level. This need is probably the hardest one that Trisha could have tried to get through because there was no one there to love or help her feel belonged. Normally Trisha could get through this level with especially them help from her Dad. Her Dad’s love easily brought her through, but he was not there to help her and this far into the wilderness no one but the voices in her Walkman could help.

“Now that she wasn’t thirsty anymore, what should she imagine? And she knew, just like that. She imagined Tom Gordon was in the clearing with her…” (King 103).

This quote is probably one of the best for demonstrating Maslow’s Hierarchy of need. In the first sentence one could see that Trisha had got pat her physiological need by drinking some water when she was thirsty.