Foil

Character Role Analysis

Mary Dowd and Sarah Rees-Toome

By reading Mary's diary along with Gemma and her friends, we learn that Sarah is power hungry and willing to do anything—even evil, terrible things like murder—to get what she wants, and we also see how Sarah manipulates Mary, turning hot and cold on her friend at the drop of a hat.

The thing is, though, that it's really good for Mary that we get to see all of this, because otherwise Mary herself doesn't look so hot. She murdered a child, after all, which makes writing her off as evil too pretty tempting—except that we see how Sarah treats her, and we understand that Sarah manipulates and tricks Mary constantly, which ultimately makes Mary a sympathetic character. And, in turn, Mary magnifies the evilness in Sarah, showing how pure it is and how readily it shows through her own moral struggles.