June 27, 2020
Pulitzer prize judging board
Columbia University, 709 Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Dear Pulitzer prize judges,
I am writing to you about a certain book that I believe should earn the Pulitzer prize. For a book to earn the Pulitzer prize it needs to inform us, challenge our conventional notions of creative expression and push us to consider and embrace new ideas and perspectives. This year I believe that book should be The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The Goldfinch presents themes in the book about lost love, loss of innocence, crime in art, identity, friendship, and fate vs free will. These subjects have been written in books before but The Goldfinch does it in a different way. In The Goldfinch the story is told through the eyes of Theo and how he sees the world after his mother passes away through an accident but he believes that she died because of him and that if he never got in trouble then they wouldn’t have been at the art gallery. After the accident, he witnesses death in a way no child his age ever should, so when he continues through his life he sees things through a different lens. The main conflict in this book is Theo stealing the painting after the explosion and as he grows he expresses the fact that he has a connection with the painting through his mother who saw it and was inspired to become a model. Throughout the book Theo expresses how much he loves his mother and hates his father for leaving them alone, so when Xandra tells him he is much like his father he begins to question his identity and purpose in life. After the explosion he finds that no one can understand him anymore, not even his friends, so he becomes close to Boris and Pippa because they have also lost a loved one and know how he feels and can sympathise with him. For a large part of the novel, Theo believes that his actions are dictated by his mother’s death, symbolized by his possession of the Goldfinch. However, when Theo discovers that Boris had stolen the painting even before he returned to New York, he questions whether he simply believed he was controlled by fate. He goes to Hobie’s store led by the ring given to him after his mother’s death, and creates connections for life. The novel illustrates the struggle of whether it was his fate in receiving the ring or his free will in choosing to pursue its owner that led Theo to form lifelong passions and connections. Moreover, when reflecting on his life choices while almost overdosing, Theo analyzes how much of his actions were driven by fate or free will. These include his stay with the Barbours, his relation with Pippa, and his friendship with Boris. This story was based off of a real explosion at a museum, on Oct. 12, 1654, the young Fabritius was living in the western Netherlands town of Delft when a gunpowder warehouse exploded after a worker inspected the area with a lantern. The talented student of Rembrandt was one of the victims, as were most of his paintings. The book is about the aftermath through a child’s eyes which start out as innocent and slowly become grown up but in this situation they grow up quicker than most. I hope this letter will give you reason to see that this book deserves the Pulitzer prize.
Sincerely
Briana M Mackie
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