Reflection on 13 Reasons Why (p.1-53)

 

Hi, I’m Tina and this is my reflection on the novel, 13 reasons why. I’m going to briefly introduce the book and parts I read. And then, I will talk about my reflection and the most impressive part for me. Finally, a guess of the following plots as a conclusion.

This novel's main theme is bully and categorized in thriller novels. The main character is Hannah Baker who was bullied to suicide, and she left 7 tapes of her last words, especially, to those who bullied her before. She gave these to one of the perpetrators, Clay Jensen, and commanded him to listen and pass on the tapes to other perpetrators. From these tapes, we can gradually reveal the reasons why Hannah ended her life.

Page 1 to 53 consists of one tape, two sides/reasons of the story. The first reason is that her first kiss was bragged to become something sexier. It is ironically that the rumor was spread by the boy she loved, who gave her the kiss. I thought the experience of betrayal hurt her a lot. She must have seen the kiss as the progress of their relationship, while he just wanted to make fun of her. Then the second reason is that she was sexually hunt because of being listed in an unfriendly list called, “Best Ass in the Freshman Class.” Some of her classmates used this as an excuse to treat her high-handed.

When reading to page 53, my biggest feeling of these chapters was shocked. Before reading, I had already known that the theme is bully. But it was somewhat out of my imagination; that is, how physical bully really could be was so unexpected. Comparing to our school life in Taiwan, we could also see the difference of cultures in different countries. In Asian countries, bully is usually conducted psychologically, while physical bully is more often to be seen in Western countries. And this can not only be found in film or TV programs, but also be seen in the reality. Recently, I got a piece of news on YouTube that a Taiwanese boy was sent to Canada by parents to study in Canada’s high school. At the very first course of the first school day, he encountered bully. Just because of an eye contact, one of his classmates twisted his nipples and made fun of him. We could not actually know the reason why he did so, but from this, we could know that this kind of serious bully is really existed. And the connection between plot and news made the plot more real and vivid in my mind, so I could relate it better though I didn’t encounter or witness any bully before.

Besides, the following is the most impressive plot to me. A cupped hand smacked my ass. And then, he said it. “Best Ass in the Freshman Class, Wally. Standing right here in your store!” I was overwhelmed by these sentences. From these sentences, I see that they took Hannah for granted. Moreover, when Hannah fought back and asked him to apologize, he said, “I’m just playing, Hannah. Just relax.” Just like it was not a big deal. However, in my opinion, no one could stand on the perspective of perpetrator to tell the victim about that. Imagine that someone gives you a punch and tells you it would not be so hurt. I believe that everybody cannot accept it. One will never know the harm unless being the victim.

According to the introduction and the first two chapters, the following parts must be the other tapes, which means reasons of Hannah’s death. I’m looking forward on the development of the story. And I expect the story about Clay Jensen the most. Since he admitted that he liked Hannah, I wondered why he was also involved in this. My guess of the story is that when something bad happened on Hannah, he didn’t speak up for Hannah and kept it in silence, which indirectly made it worse. When it comes to bully, being silence is the accomplice. I guess the author may stand on this point for the story.