Luisa Rey

Karen, Lauren, & Meagan!

Luisa Rey is an editorial journalist who writes for a magazine named Spyglass. She felt as if working at Spyglass she felt closer to her father.  Her father was a cop who joined the force right before Pearl Harbor, and who was shot and injured on the job, and while recovering in the hospital and leaving the force he then learned about and became very interested in journalism. 

She meets Rufus Sixsmith, a physciatrist, who she meets in an elevator.  Rufus knew Luisa Rey’s father from a reading her father had wrote about Vietnam.  She becomes interested in his findings about a new nuclear plant being built.  Sixsmith’s report is that the plant is dangerous and the government is trying to cover all of this up so the public does not become aware of how dangerous the plant is.  Luisa goes to Sixsmith’s office to meet with him and he was not there and she started snooping around his office.  During this time he is sent to the airport to go away and he couldn’t get away so a man, Bill Smoke,  from the plant went and killed him.  After his murder Luisa posses as his niece so she can visit the scene, and at the scene she figues out he was murdered and now her life is in jeopardy.  Not only is she investigating Sixsmith’s death she is also figuing out the truth about the nuclear plant.  The chapter ends with Luisa being run off the cliff by the same man, Bill Smoke.

This chapter characterizes the fact that writers will do anything to get to the bottom of the story to inherit the truth. This is demonstrated by not only Luisa, but her father, and Sixsmith who are all injured or fatally wounded during their investigation of the truth. 

This chapter shows how extreme people are.  Within this chapter we see people go to the extreme to cover up the truth, and there are other people who go to the extreme to expose the truth.  This demonstrates that society can be extremely greedy or self-centered to keep the truth covered up.  The nuclear plant did not care that the plant would be harming others in the long term, all they cared was about the truth was covered up.   Through BIll Smoke’s statement, “No drug, no religious experience touches you like turning a man into a corpse,” (112).  This statement greatly reflects how messed up  civiliazation is when the greatest thrill in live is killing a man.  It is extremely sad that even today many people kill others for no reason. 

Our main question with this chapter is what happened to Luisa?   This chapter is similar to other chapters within this book, because like other chapters this chapter abruptly ends and we as readers are left to figure out really happened.  We are interested to know that there is another chapter in this book so we all have our own ideas about what happened and we will get to see in the next chapter what really did happen.  In the next chapter we see that the Timothy Cavendish is reading a book about her life on his train ride.  Therefore, we are left to believe there is still more to learn about Luisa Rey and her life.

Advertisement