Animal Dreams: Character Comparison

We are introduced to Hallie and Cosima as if they were one person, two halves to a whole. As the book goes on we start to see some differences between them. As children, they were inseparable, mainly because their mother died when they were little; they were each others only family besides their father, Homero, who was never close to them. They both shared a love for animals, tall, and felt uncomfortable in their home town, Grace, Arizona. Once they were out of high school and college they lived together in Tucson and still seemed like they would never be separated. When Hallie follows her dreams and goes off the Nicaragua to help the people with their crops, Cosima comes back to her home town Grace, Arizona to care for her ill father, to visit her high school friends, and to take a biology teaching job. Coming home brings back bad memories for Cosima, like when she miscarried at the age of 15, which is the starting point of her life where she started to differentiate herself from Hallie. She is unaware of that fact even when she returns to Grace. What set Cosima apart from Hallie the most was her sense of feeling lost and out of place. She spent her whole life fleeing from one town to another trying to find a home where she felt accepted, the problem was she hadn’t found her self yet. She also was convinced that Hallie knew everything and was better then herself, even when Hallie was all the way in Nicaragua Cosima still relied on her for advice and guidance. On the contrary, Hallie always feels at home wherever she is, has dreams, is confident, and is motivated to reach out and make the world a better place. As Cosima is back in Grace she reunites with a high school friend, Loyd, who is aids Cosima to find herself. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua Hallie is kidnapped, for the first time Cosima is truly by herself with no communication with her sister. Now, she must learn how to make decisions and go through life on her own, which may be a big step in Cosima’s journey of finding self.