With the aid of a forensic physiciatrist to help defend peters case, the judge fails to believe the severity of peters illness. Peter page 390 once the world was pulled out from beneath your feet, did you ever get to stand on firm ground again. Alex and lacys friendship comes to an end when they discover peter and josie playing with guns in the houghton house. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Picoult made this decision to show that this really affected peter.
Teasing, bullying and torment are the driving force behind the actions of seventeen yearold peter houghton. Peter is so excited for his first day of kindergarten that he cant sleep. Her 14th novel, nineteen minutes, went to number one on the new york times bestseller list for fiction, and fans, if not all literary critics, will be pleased to know there is definitely more to come. But with her new nineteen minutes, a columbinelike tale of a disenfranchised young man and the tragedy he wreaks on his local high school, she takes on a frightening, timely trend ripped from the headlines. Chapter summaries of nineteen minutes by jodi picoult are not meant to replace reading the book.
Ends her friendship with peter in middle school to join the popular group. She is glad she told the truth, but she still gets five years in prison. In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your ha. Nineteen minutes chapter 9 summary freebooksummary. He faces having to be compared to his older brother joey who even participates in bullying peter at school. A month afterward, peter commits suicide by stuffing a sock into his throat. Nineteen minutes by jodi picoult chapter summaries.
Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Peter is convicted of eight counts of firstdegree murder and two counts of seconddegree murder and is sentenced to life in prison. Sterling is a small, ordinary new hampshire town where. The mass shooting takes place at sterling high, in new hampshire, and lasts for the nineteen minutes of the book s titular namesake. He later commits suicide after a few months in jail by stuffing a sock down his throat and suffocating. Alex cormier alex is a supporting character in nineteen minutes, but she plays a huge role with one of the main characters, josie. A brief synopsis and the ending will be revealed for the book nineteen. Jodi picoult nineteen minutes book trailer youtube. Sterling, new hampshire was known as the safe town until march 6, 2007. Nineteen minutes by jodi picoult book club discussion. Nineteen minutes study guide from litcharts the creators.
Josie has to struggle with a mother that can, by law, tell her absolutely nothing, and with a guilty conscience about peters downward spiral. There is one obvious main conflict that peter faces is being bullied in his life. Top 6 quotes from nineteen minutes free book notes. Nineteen minutes teaches to never bully anyone, because it could scar everyone around you. Reading the things that peter went through sometimes brought me to tears. Josie was charged as an accessory to second degree murder and sentenced to five years. Next in the chapter, lewis sees his son peter for the first time in a long time. It turns out that josie did know, so alex worried for nothing. One example of point of view is when lacy, peters mom, talks about what it feel like to be a killers mother. Peter houghton, a victim of bullying since kindergarten, decided to get revenge on all the people that had ever bullied him.
Peter was frequently the target of severe bullying at school, and josie often stuck. Peter believes in nineteen minutes you can get revenge, whereas diana thinks the world can come to a pause. I do not want to give the storyline away or go into great detail to ruin the book for you but initially. And picoults way of moving his story beyond the purely schematic is to dramatize it. Nineteen minutes is a heart stopping novel about a school shooting that lasted nineteen minutes. In just nineteen minutes, peter drastically changes the lives of many of the members of his sterling, new hampshire community. On peters first day of middle school, drew pushes peter and calls him a retard. The multiple perspectives and flashbacks are a unique way for the reader to get the whole story and understand what really happened in those nineteen minutes at sterling high. The mass shooting takes place at sterling high, in new hampshire, and lasts for the nineteen minutes of the books titular namesake. The chapters in this book are named for time in relation to a school shooting at sterling high school. This chapter starts out with alexs reluctance to inform josie that she is dating patrick. Nineteen minutes summary from litcharts the creators of.
Peter and josie are very close friends as small children and really best friends. He went after most the people who hurt him in some way. One of those students is josie cormier, the daughter of district judge alex cormier, who is a single mother. Peter went into an armed rampage at the school aiming to hurt the ones that had harassed him over the years.
The book starts with peter rampaging through his high school killing fellow classmates and others. Nineteen minutes, simon and schuster, 2007 464 pages. Nineteen minutes jodi picoult, 2007 examines a school shooting in a riveting, poignant, and. Finds and visits her father only to be rejected by him. Nineteen minutes presents peter purely as a victim of circumstances. This comparison of opinions is an example of a hyperbole, which best enhances each characters disposition. One month after diana leven gets ready for her case by going over all the data patrick has given to her. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading nineteen minutes.
Nineteen minutes is how long it took the tennessee titans to sell out of tickets to the playoffs. In typical fashion, picoult shapes her story by providing various perspectives. Josie lies in the whole book saying she forgets what happened, but at the end she admits to shooting matt to try and salvage peters case. The best study guide to nineteen minutes on the planet, from the creators of sparknotes. In section four of nineteen minutes picoult uses the letter that peter wrote to josie telling his feelings to add another medium for the book. Character analysis nineteen minutes by jodi picoult. I feel like throughout the book peter himself is his biggest conflict.
He then decided to react and shoot 10 people at his school. Picoult is a remarkable storyteller, and throughout the book she. Rich with psychological and social insight, nineteen minutes is a riveting, poignant, and thoughtprovoking novel that has at its center a haunting question. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist. Get everything you need to know about peter houghton in nineteen minutes. They are meant to serve as a study guide to help keep the many events in this novel straight. Plot summary nineteen minutes are all it takes to turn the small town of sterling upside down. The rest of the book bounces between flashback and the present. As in house rules the main character in nineteen minutes, peter, is a teenage boy who is different from his peers and suffers for it.
I felt that picoult should have written this part of the book from peters perspective because i wanted to know what he was thinking. Peters life changes because he is the main shooter and he is put in prison. Consequences of bullying erupt in picoults nineteen minutes. When he shoot up in the cafeteria he sat down and ate peacefully something he never got to do. It also highlights how bullying can erode a young persons sense of self in this case, peters. Nineteen minutes characters from litcharts the creators of. While taking a gander at the rundown of understudies in the clinic, she sees josies name and understands shes the girl of judge cormier. Need help on characters in jodi picoults nineteen minutes. Peter houghton enters sterling high and goes on a killing spree that leaves 10 dead and many others wounded both physically and emotionally. Alex cormier josies mother but also a judge, is assigned to peters trial but then realizes that josie will be a witness so she has to step down from it patrick ducharme a detective investigating the sterling high case. And peters parents, lacy and lewis houghton, ceaselessly examine the past to see what they might have said or done to compel their son to such extremes. Lacy peters mother is a midwife and assists alex josies mother deliver her baby girl. Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition the countless flashbacks of peters victimization rather than fresh insight.
This is a valuable lesson in life, because bullying occurs everyday. Everyone would remember peter for 19 minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million. One theme developed in nineteen minutes by jodi picoult is something bad happening can change everything. If you spent your whole life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were. Peter houghton, picked on by school mates from the first day of kindergarten, enters sterling high, and in nineteen minutes kills ten and wounds another nineteen students. You can read a story to a child or get your oil changed. Peter is convicted of eight counts of first degree murder and 2 counts of second degree murder. This lesson is very valuable and can inspire you to be a better. Jodi picoults latest topical novel, nineteen minutes, takes its title from the duration of a highschool shooting rampage perpetrated by peter houghton, a muchbullied new hampshire teenager. She needs to discover when diminish changed from thought to activity, with respect to the shooting. Taran adams in nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. Its a provocative cautionary tale that should hit close to home for every community. He used to be best friends with josie when they were younger, but she got caught up in popularity. In section one of nineteen minutes we meet the protagonist, peter who is a round character who made a decision to get revenge by causing the school shooting.
Nineteen minutes charts what happens the day one very unhappy and bullied schoolboy, peter houghton, decides that enough is enough and retaliates in the most drastic way imaginable. Nineteen minutes 2007 is the fourteenth novel by the american author, jodi picoult. In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. It is something asked over and over again throughout the book and society today. When i read that peter had chosen to end his life by shoving a sock down his throat, i was extremely disappointed. Megan rising action peter had enough of getting put down and bullied by people. Peter houghton, the seventeenyearold school shooter, changes the lives of many people on march 6, 2007.
Nineteen minutes by jodi picoult chapter 11 five months. Over 12 million copies of jodi picoults books have been sold worldwide. This book shows a consequence that could possibly happen in reallife. Sometimes, it doesnt even take the reading of an entire book, though i made it. Alex and lacys friendship comes to an end when they discover peter. Bullying is portrayed as the main cause for peter houghtons mass shooting at sterling high. Did his classmates have to right to judge him the way they did.
The character of peter houghton in nineteen minutes from litcharts. Between salem falls and nineteen minutes by jodi picoult, jordan the defense attorney and selena his private investigator marry, and heres how i think the wedding might have gone. Peter and joeys mother, lewiss wife, and a professional midwife. In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. Themes nineteen minutes by jodi picoult, literary analysis. One final incident of bullying sends peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that. The story begins in a small town in sterling, new hampshire. Lacy makes her elder son joey promise that he will look after peter, but as soon as they get on the bus joey abandons him. In a matter of seconds everyones whole world changes.
Peter is an awkward teenage boy who has been bullied his whole life. Themes of fitting in, bullying, parenthood, love, and loss fill the pages of picoults novel as characters attempt to discover themselves in the wake of peters crime. Peter hides in his his room and turns to his computer to give him comfort where he designs computer games with a lot of violence. Who has the right to judge who is a major theme within nineteen minutes. This theme is introduced towards the beginning of the book when the school shooting happens. He bursts into his own school, wielding four guns and apparently shooting at random until ten people are dead and another nineteen are seriously wounded.
For your reference, we provided these nineteen minutes quotes with page numbers using the following version of the book. Nineteen minutes is a harrowing, suspenseful narrative about a high school shooting and its aftermath. This gives the reader the analysis of how much he was made fun of, and the bullying caused the decision of the shooting. He is a round character he surprises the reader by introducing himself like youre present at the shooting. Nineteen minutes is enough time to become disenchanted with an author. Nineteen minutes summary and study guide supersummary. Peter houghton is one of two main characters in nineteen minutes. This time centering on 2 teenagers in particular, josie and peter. Lacy peters mother is a midwife and assists alex josies mother deliver her baby. Considers suicide after her release from the hospital but decides against it. Click below to download the full study guide for nineteen minutes.
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