Amnesia, imagination and subsequent narration twists in the girl on the train by Paula Hawkins Hend Samy Mohamed Gamal El-Din.

Abstract EN

This paper aims at studying the fictional mind of the miserable divorced Rachel Watson, the main female character and narrator in the British Paula Hawkins' best-selling novel The Girl on the Train (2015), and its effect on the novel's narration.

Since Rachel is portrayed as a mentally disordered woman controlled by the high power of imagination and an amnesia problem, her narrative voice is regarded as unreliable.

Thus, it drives the novel's events into a mood of twists and suspense.

As the Girl on the Train's events go through Hawkins' unreliable narrative style, a few unexpected facts are revealed gradually, and towards the end, the readers surprisingly realize that the unreliable character in the novel turns out to be the most reliable.

This paper, therefore, explores the mental limitations of the fictional character Rachel Watson, and considers the narratological twist phenomenon of the unreliable narration in The Girl on the Train.