Trash

Trash

by

Andy Mulligan

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Trash makes teaching easy.

Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) Character Analysis

A kindhearted 22-year-old British volunteer at the Pascal Aguila Mission School on the Behala landfill. Olivia originally travelled to the city in which the story is set to go surfing, but she ultimately decided to stay and help out at the school. The children living in Behala steal Olivia’s heart, and she’s particularly fond of a young orphan nicknamed Rat. However, Rat and two other boys from the landfill, Raphael and Gardo, put Olivia in grave danger when they dupe her into taking Gardo to Colva Prison. They do so in order to meet a political prisoner named Gabriel Olondriz who was jailed by a corrupt politician named Senator Zapanta. Olivia is distraught after witnessing the squalor of the prison, which is stacked full of starving people in tiny cages, many of whom are young children. Olivia is arrested by the police after her visit to the prison, but her father (who is wealthy and well-connected) sends a man from the British Embassy to negotiate for her release. Despite the risks Olivia faced, she’s ultimately glad that the boys tricked her. Olivia feels that she learned many things from her exposure to Behala and Colva Prison that she couldn’t have learned at university, and she says that she left a piece of her heart behind when she left the country after her release.

Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) Quotes in Trash

The Trash quotes below are all either spoken by Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) or refer to Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Childhood, Poverty, and Injustice Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Chapter 5 Quotes

Ten thousand is a lot of money!

Related Characters: Raphael’s auntie (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Gardo, Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia)
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 1 Quotes

Little Jun had me wrapped around his little finger in about two days, and I was forever giving him little bits of food, and little bits of money. I don’t know how else a boy like that survives.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Rat / Jun / Jun-Jun
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

When one of their number is hurt, everyone feels the wound.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Father Juilliard
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 3 Quotes

Behala also makes you want to weep, because it looks like an awful punishment that will never end – and if you have any imagination, you can see the child and what he is doomed to do for the rest of his life. When you see the old man, too weak to work, propped in a chair outside his shack, you think, That is Raphael in forty years. What could possibly change? These children are doomed to breathe the stink all day, all night, sifting the effluent of the city. Rats and children, children and rats, and you sometimes think they have pretty much the same life.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Gardo
Related Symbols: Trash
Page Number: 92
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 4 Quotes

They’re poor. They do many things.

Related Characters: Gardo (speaker), Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) , Gabriel Olondriz
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 5 Quotes

What matters is that forty years ago I came upon information that Senator Zapanta had spirited away thirty million dollars of international aid money […] But no schools or hospitals were ever built, and the city stayed poor.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Gabriel Olondriz (speaker), Gardo, Rat / Jun / Jun-Jun, Senor Zapanta (vice-president) , José Angelico
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 7 Quotes

I had so much evidence. Unfortunately for me, I was naïve. My office was raided. The same night there was a terrible fire at my house. I was away but both my maid and my driver were killed in it. And every scrap of evidence went up in smoke.

Related Characters: Gabriel Olondriz (speaker), Gardo, Senor Zapanta (vice-president) , Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia)
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 10 Quotes

I learned perhaps more than any university could ever teach me.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Gardo, Gabriel Olondriz, Olivia’s father
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
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Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) Quotes in Trash

The Trash quotes below are all either spoken by Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) or refer to Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Childhood, Poverty, and Injustice Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Chapter 5 Quotes

Ten thousand is a lot of money!

Related Characters: Raphael’s auntie (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Gardo, Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia)
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 1 Quotes

Little Jun had me wrapped around his little finger in about two days, and I was forever giving him little bits of food, and little bits of money. I don’t know how else a boy like that survives.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Rat / Jun / Jun-Jun
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

When one of their number is hurt, everyone feels the wound.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Father Juilliard
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 3 Quotes

Behala also makes you want to weep, because it looks like an awful punishment that will never end – and if you have any imagination, you can see the child and what he is doomed to do for the rest of his life. When you see the old man, too weak to work, propped in a chair outside his shack, you think, That is Raphael in forty years. What could possibly change? These children are doomed to breathe the stink all day, all night, sifting the effluent of the city. Rats and children, children and rats, and you sometimes think they have pretty much the same life.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Raphael Fernández, Gardo
Related Symbols: Trash
Page Number: 92
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 4 Quotes

They’re poor. They do many things.

Related Characters: Gardo (speaker), Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) , Gabriel Olondriz
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 5 Quotes

What matters is that forty years ago I came upon information that Senator Zapanta had spirited away thirty million dollars of international aid money […] But no schools or hospitals were ever built, and the city stayed poor.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Gabriel Olondriz (speaker), Gardo, Rat / Jun / Jun-Jun, Senor Zapanta (vice-president) , José Angelico
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 7 Quotes

I had so much evidence. Unfortunately for me, I was naïve. My office was raided. The same night there was a terrible fire at my house. I was away but both my maid and my driver were killed in it. And every scrap of evidence went up in smoke.

Related Characters: Gabriel Olondriz (speaker), Gardo, Senor Zapanta (vice-president) , Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia)
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Chapter 10 Quotes

I learned perhaps more than any university could ever teach me.

Related Characters: Olivia Weston (Sister Olivia) (speaker), Gardo, Gabriel Olondriz, Olivia’s father
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis: