Struggle In Jay Asher's 'Thirteen Reasons Why'

Thirteen is a portrayal of a teenage girl growing up in an impoverished home, with no true parental figures, searching for acceptance and love. While the world around her seems steady, Tracy Freeland feels alienated from this stability. Raised by her alcoholic mother and her mother's drug addicted boyfriend, Tracy feels lost and angry. For a time, Tracy finds solace in school, excelling academically and habitually hiding behind naive innocence and a modest form of dress. However, the dawning of puberty and the start of seventh grade leave Tracy with a wavering self worth and a desire to leave childish ways behind. Determined to gain the attention of the popular, Evie Zamora, Tracy convinces her mom to buy her a new, sexier wardrobe and begins her slow descent into a life of theft, drugs, alcohol, and sex. Throughout her journey, Tracy finds herself lost and alone, wondering who she is apart from her dysfunctional lifestyle. There are pivotal moments when Tracy reaches out to both her mother and father, only to be met with disinterest and disregard. More often than not, Tracy's mom, Melanie is too busy with her own recovery efforts, her job, and her boyfriend to give Tracy the attention she is desperately seeking. Though Melanie is a constant in Tracy's life, scenes regularly depict her as being a pushover, allowing Tracy too much freedom and not enough discipline. On the other hand, Tracy's father is absent from all areas of Tracy's life, constantly cancelling plans at the last minute. In one central scene, Melanie reaches out to him for help and when he finally shows up he merely dismisses Tracy's needs in favor of his own career.

When first introduced into the story Clay is just an average high school student. He was friends with a girl named Hannah who recently commit suicide when he receives a box of voice recorded tapes from her explaining her reasons behind killing herself. These tapes are the extraordinary circumstance that force Clay to come of age. In the tapes, Hannah explains how if people reached out to her, talked to her, maybe things would have been different, maybe she would still be alive. “I think I’ve made myself very clear, but no one’s stepping forward to stop me. (...) A lot of you cared, just not enough. And that’s what I needed to find out” (Asher 280). Hannah explains how she made it clear that she was unhappy and thinking about suicide, but no one did anything to stop her, and it seemed that no one cared enough about her to do anything, resulting in her death. After hearing these tapes and these words, Clay has a new perspective on people, to be nice to everyone who seems sad so they don’t end up like Hannah. Earlier in the book we were introduced to a character named Skye, who, after 8th grade, stopped talking to people. Clay was on the bus while listening to a few of Hannah’s tapes, and Skye realized he was in the seat in front of her, and decided to talk to him. “Skye’s always been pretty, but she acts like the thoughts never crossed her mind. Especially the past couple of

Why does Holden continuously judge people based on their physical appearance? Could this be a projection of his insecurities or a reflection of his mental health?

The next morning Jones wakes up with a hangover combined with terrible images from his dream of a white and black boy fighting with knives and the black boy slowly losing with each additional stab wound. Looking back Jones thinks of his place in America where he is a black man but all he wants is to be seen as just a man. When arriving to work Jones has decided to quit only to find the manager talking to every white boy that enters, rather than him. While on break he tries to get ahold of alice to discuss things only to find that she is out. Then he decides to go looking for Madge who is complaining to Don about bad gear from a black guy. Don brings up her date from the previous night prompting her to storm off. Jones again tries to find Alice

Age thirteen is a special time for boys. Sorry girls, I don't have a clue how it goes for you. I'm not leaving you out, I just don't know and don't feel confident to comment. If the shoe fits, wear it.

Taylor moves to kentucky to change the nature of her life. She wants to change the average lifestyle that girls in her home town lives. She does not want to leave high school, married, with a child so Taylor moves, changes her name and identity to pursue a different outcome. The impact is, despite her wishes, her path was not what she intentionally planned. Although her path changed quite drastically she grew and became a better person for it.

Throughout J.D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, teenagers are represented within every aspect of the text. The representation of such is quite accurate in portraying an adolescent. To start off with, Holden’s problems and troubles are not a result of his own actions. Also, His issues are often exaggerating, and are not as serious as he makes them out to be. Finally, Holden’s actions and mannerisms are reflective of a teenager. In short, Catcher in the Rye is accurate in portraying teenagers.

Have you ever wished you could go back to your younger years? Not for the purpose of fixing mistakes, or for resolving personal issues, but for the sake of not knowing such corruptions the world seems to create as we age. The innocence of childhood is a popular time to grieve back, especially while in adolescents. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, the rise to adulthood includes many struggles, which result from a desire for childhood innocence. Holden and Ackley, as well as Stradlater reveal their struggles throughout the novel, which are apparent because of their desire for such innocence.

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield narrates a story from a mental institution in California and tells of his adventures from Pencey Prep in Pennsylvania to New York City. Salinger grew up very wealthy and attended various prep schools in New York, before being sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in 1934. After graduating from military school, Salinger attended various collages (without graduating from any), including Columbia University. Many of the events discussed by Holden reflect Salinger’s past. For example, Holden was constantly moving schools, he was threatened with military school, and he knew a student who attended Columbia. However, Salinger wrote this novel in a post-World-War 2 setting.

The Catcher in the Rye is often regarded as a book about coming of age and what it truly means to be an adult. Although coming of age is repeatedly advertised as a positive event in one’s life, the steps before fully maturing often come with obstacles. The author of the novel, J.D. Salinger, follows the story of Holden Caulfield, a boy who is seemingly afraid of his upcoming transition to adulthood. Throughout the novel, there are instances of Holden holding on to innocence. He uses the past as a way to prevent himself from ever truly transitioning to an adult. All of the aforementioned instances are demonstrated through symbols, whether they are in the form of objects or actions. Overall, Salinger’s use of symbolism depicts that Holden holds on to innocence to compensate for his fear of his shift to adulthood.

Throughout the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, the reader follows Holden through his internal struggles and ultimately watches his growth throughout the three days in which the novel takes place. Holden’s brother, Allie, will never get a chance to grow up, because he died of leukemia, and Holden feels somewhat regretful that this happened to his brother, a “terrifically intelligent” (Salinger 49) boy, not someone of a lesser character and cleverness, such as Holden himself. Because of this, Holden acts as though he has to stay as a child for Allie and maintain his innocence for Allie. However, as the novel goes on, Salinger uses symbols such as the carousel and the gold ring along with the imagery of the parents

Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, is a play about a jury trying to come to a verdict that will determine whether or not a teenage boy will be put on death row.

Clay is now able to admit to his mistakes. He was “Sorry for waiting so long to let her know how[he] felt”[Asher, 181]. Instead of blaming Hannah for purposely using every little thing as an excuse to commit suicide, he has realized that what he did made a difference in Hannah’s world and he could have done something different. Clay also becomes more mature after hearing the reality of people around him. All throughout the novel Clay listened to how everyone around him, people that he thought were his friends, or somewhat good people, had treated Hannah while she was alive and after her death.

Have you ever noticed how every action or choice you perform has a consequence? Actions come from out state of mind, and when our mind changes, so does our actions. We need to take responsibility for our actions, and reflect on them. Jay Asher relates to this in his book Thirteen Reasons Why. Not only do actions have consequences in the book Thirteen Reasons Why, but they also occur in the real world too.

For Thirteen Reasons Why, I am going to explain the literary terms. Thirteen Reason is about a girl named, Hannah Baker who killed herself. Before Hannah killed herself she made 13 videos of why this person made her make that decision.