The Quest

Still Life with Tornado uses the motif of the quest narrative to show how Sarah's travels through the city mirror her internal development. In the novel, Sarah literally travels through the city of Philadelphia as she tries to understand herself and her life more deeply. At first, Sarah’s quest is specific: she wants to change her name to something more original than Sarah. As the novel progresses, however, her quest to become less specifically driven. Instead, she seems to wander aimlessly through the city. She tells the reader, "last week, and the third day of bus riding, I decided to transfer every time I saw the same bus shelter advertisement twice” (12). The haphazard nature of her game might make her quest seem random, but the arbitrariness of the bus transfers do, in fact, lead her to places that help her think about her own...