Thunder Road

Synopsis
Thunder Road is a novel about the life of a 19 year old boy, having no connection to his blood- linked family whatsoever, trying to find his soul of life in the engaged city of Auckland, New Zealand. Though when love strikes the innocent Trace, his world is torn into two. Is street racing the best option or his one and only true love?

There are several themes shown within the novel, such as : The Individual versus Society, Love and sacrifice, Power of Tradition, though the central topic of this novel is Temptation. Temptation is usually used in a loose sense to describe actions that indicate a lack of self-control.
For example, On pages 41-43, a young Maori boy had entered the paint shop where Trace and Karen worked at, and had pointed the knife at Karen to bring him some glue. Trace could have obviously ran for it, but to show himself off to Karen he tackled the boy down. He was very tempted to show himself. Temptation can be known for a bad cause, and even a good cause.

The character of Trace is interesting in the novel. This is because he develops a close relationship with Devon (his roommate) , his low self-esteem and he changes from a follower to a leader. An interesting feature of Trace is his relationship with Devon.
At first, Trace wasn’t sure about Devon saying, “I didn’t know who I was sharing a room with.” As the novel continued Trace started to spend more time with Devon eventually becoming so close that he feels that “we were brother’s man”. Trace had no close family and in the novel, Devon became like his family.
This was important because it meant that Trace was willing to support Devon in everything he did, like you would for a family member. Trace’s relationship with Devon is interesting to the reader, because it means that Trace is willing to do things he wouldn’t normally do, including stealing the drugs.

A second interesting feature of Trace’s personality is his low self-esteem, which is shown through his relationship with Karen. Karen is a girl from a rich family. Her parents are both doctors and her house is a mansion. On pages 50-52, when Trace goes to dinner at the house, he feels that both her parents are looking down on him. He says “They thought I was nothing”. Instead of standing up to them, Trace sinks lower and drinks a lot to boost his confidence. This results in him humiliating himself in front of the family and ultimately, the end of his relationship with Karen. Karen’s parents weren’t actually behaving negatively towards Trace. He just imagined that they were because of his low self-esteem. This is an interesting feature of Trace’s personality because his low self-esteem makes him more likely to go along with what other people want. If he had a more positive view of himself, he might have behaved better at Karen’s and might never have gone along with Devon. His low self esteem shows the reader his motivation for what he does in the novel.