Alex Cormier A Dynamic Character

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Recommended: Position of women in societal literature

Alex Cormier, the single mother of Josie Cormier, begins in the novel, Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult, as a hard-working mother who unintentionally sets similar high standards for her daughter to follow. After an accident that changes the lives of so many people, Alex realizes that she cannot continue her old ways. She must improvise and go off instinct instead of sheer knowledge and help her daughter begin and continue to heal both mentally and physically. Despite having to throw herself of her comfort zone to help her daughter recover from the shooting at Sterling High by an old friend, Alex Cormier becomes a dynamic character and has changed throughout the events in the novel when she realizes that she must break her addiction to working, …show more content…

As a former public defender, Alex worked hard to earn this new position. Alex, a single working mother, told a coworker “but I’m good at being a judge. And lousy at being a mother” (Picoult 297). She felt more comfortable from a judicial standpoint than a parental standpoint, which affected her daughter negatively because Josie needed her mother’s true physical presence and emotional support. Josie did not need the stress of her mother trying the case, but instead needed the tender love that Alex does not feel she can give. Alex excelled at “transforming herself into the person she needed to be before she left the house,” (Picoult 5) incidentally pushing her daughter out of her tight circle of importance. Alex then becomes stuck in the middle of maintaining her judicial status and raising Josie. For the majority of the time before the shooting, Alex remains nearly entirely focused on her career in the hopes that her daughter can and will take care of herself, thus creating an obsession for working and giving little time for anything …show more content…

Alex realized that, quite importantly, she should not ignore her daughter and the people around her to focus on her job. When Josie starts crying during a questioning by Patrick, “I’ll kill him, Alex thought rationally, calmly, after I take care of my daughter” (Picoult 275). At this point, Alex truly realizes the importance of her daughter in her life. Alex apprehended that she could not stay fair in any case involving a child, which resulted in her return to her former job as a public defender She felt as if, after experiencing this shooting on such an intimate level, she could relate to the defendant more effectively than an impartial judge. In addition, Alex takes another step towards breaking free from time-consuming work by having a baby with Patrick, not to replace Josie but simply because now she knows that she could handle that addition into her life. However sarcastic Alex’s thought when she said, “‘Oh my gosh...You really are the perfect man’’’ (Picoult 355) to Patrick, her comment still stands true. Alex found it in her to move on from her old stressful working life to a new life that has a balance between all the aspects, including work, children, partner, and simply enjoying

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