Analysis Of Pull, By Anne Riley

The novel Pull, by Anne Riley, is about a girl named Rosie Clayton who needs to move to London to see her dying grandfather. While she is there she witnesses a few violent events twice, each with a different outcome. Rosie seeks out the man who she thinks is rewinding time and is told that her speculations are true. The group of people that can rewind time call their power the Pull. These people also fight against a band of stronger humans called the Mortifier, who attempt to claim teenagers who are undergoing mental challenges such as depression and anxiety. Rosie and her friend who is able to Pull, named Albert, fight many intense battles against the Mortifier. In the end, Rosie, Albert, and the rest of the people who are able to Pull in
One example is when Albert and Dan are fighting two Motriferi on a bridge and they tell Rosie to run. Rosie, thinking she can fight her own battles, denies Albert’s requests: “Albert places one hand on his lower back with the palm facing me. His fingers flicker toward the street. Run, he’s telling me. Go. Now. I don’t move…. I never had any intention of leaving him here…” (270-271). This shows her arrogance by saying how she believes that she can fend for herself, even though she does not have the ability to Pull. Even though Albert and his friends are experts at fighting, Rosie still thinks she should be a part of the fight even though she is being hunted by the attackers. Another example of Rosie’s arrogance is when she asks Albert to see if she can Pull, even though she knows she cannot: “‘I want to try to Pull.’. . .‘Ah.’ [Albert] looks down. ‘Well, the thing is--’ ‘I know,’ I say, deflating a little. ‘You already said I’m not one of you. But I can feel it, right?’” (230) Even though Rosie understands that she cannot Pull and that she will fail if she tries, she still asks if she can be trained to Pull. This represents her arrogance by showing how she assumes she can do things she knows she cannot do just because she can ‘feel it.’ Albert, being nice, tries to train her but Rosie fails every time she
When Rosie and Albert’s crew found the underground rave, Rosie was able to talk to the leader of the London Mortifier and almost change his mind about killing Albert and his friends. “‘You don’t have to do this…. Come on,’ I whisper. ‘Let’s escape. All of us, together.’ The corners of his mouth tremble. There is so much longing in his eyes. He blinks like he’s trying to clear his vision, and for one glorious moment, I think I've convinced him’” (330). Even though the leader of the Mortifier shot Albert moments later and Rosie’s dead grandfather Pulled to save Albert, Rosie confronts the leader of the Mortifier and finds that there are still some human feelings left in him. Rosie could have gotten shot at any time by the Mortifier leader yet she still stood up to him and tried to talk him out of drugging innocent teens. Another time that Rosie shows bravery is when Rosie and Albert were fighting a few Mortifieri, and Rosie stood up and even came in contact with one: “I rush toward him, but he’s too fast--his hands are in front of him now. He gets to a sitting position and has just enough time to give me a triumphant smirk before I drive my knee into the underside of his jaw” (276). This demonstrates Rosie’s bravery by explaining how she stood up to and fought a man who is trying to kidnap and drug her. Rosie stood up to and put a knee into her attacker’s jaw, even though she knows that the human she is