Trash is an epic novel about three ordinary dumpsite boys that sort through trash for a living. One day they find a key that leads them to a train station locker. From there they start the journey of their lives. Throughout the book many characteristics are shown both good and bad. I have chosen to talk about the themes trust and resilience. I chose these topics because I think both of these were shown many times in the book and they are to things that you need in every day life.
Trust is the reliance that you have on one another, the belief that someone will come through for you in a time of need. This was shown many times in the book my favourite example was when Rat, (or Jun-Jun) was there for Raphael and Gardo at the beginning of the book they needed a place to hide the wallet. At any give time he could have gone straight to the police and turned in Raphael and Gardo.. Sister Oliver’s trust, pity and innocence led her to believing the three boys lie, this ended up putting her at great risk. Later on in the novel Gardo went back to the prison with the 20,000 pesos to give the guard for the bible. The guard tried to catch Gardo but he escaped just in time. I think this was a case where they were forced to trust the guard whether they wanted to or not, they had no option to get the bible or not.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back and put up with severe amount of stress. That’s exactly what these boys put up with for the whole book, between being chased by corrupt police and breaking into a grave these boys had amazing mental strength. The best example of this is when Raphael got taken to the police station; he was tortured, beaten and almost killed. It took lots of resilience is just there will to see there adventure all the way through to the end. At any given time they could have quite gone to the police turned the other two in and made 20,000 peso.
“ We will fish for ever and live happy lives. That is our plan and nothing will