33 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren OliverBefore I Fall
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Bullying vs. Kindness
Bullying is a major theme of Before I Fall, right from the start. When Sam dies, she imagines the face of someone she helped victimize. She ruminates about her own experiences being bullied—primarily by Lindsay in the fourth grade—and decides, in the prologue and first chapter, that bullying is just something kids must deal with. She decides it’s better to be the one laughing at a victim than to be the victim.
After she’s exposed to Kent’s kindness and witnesses Juliet’s suicide, Sam begins to draw connections between bullying and potential consequences. Juliet’s suicide forces Sam to question her preconceived notions about bullying and the way the world works, and ultimately, after reliving the same day seven times, Sam becomes kinder. She realizes that kindness makes life worth living, so that when we do die—since we don’t, in most cases, know which moments will be our last—our lives are filled with meaning.
Redemption
Before I Fall is a story about redemption. While it focuses on Sam’s redemption, from mean girl to self-sacrificing and caring person, other transformations of this nature take place. For example, Lindsay finally starts to confront the secrets and fears she’s been carrying since childhood when Sam drives her home and asks about her past friendship with Juliet. Sam asks her about this twice, but it works the second time because Sam also offers kindness and acceptance.
Kent is redeemed in Sam’s eyes. He goes from a socially awkward nobody to the boy she loves. Elody and Ally are redeemed from Sam’s point of view, as well. So is her mother, who finally crosses the line Sam painted in red nail polish across her doorway years before to keep her mother out. When she does cross it, Sam is glad for her mother’s love and doesn’t reject her. Izzy is redeemed in Sam’s eyes when Sam discovers how brave her sister is. Finally, Juliet experiences redemption. She faces her bullies, is physically saved by Sam, and like Sam, starts to discover her worth.
Fate vs. Free Will
Early in the book, Sam is certain that her death is tied to attending the party, so she tries to avoid going. Then, she thinks that if she can save Juliet and herself, they’ll both survive. Whether she was meant to die or whether someone had to die at all instills a sense in this book that fate plays a key role in our lives. Sam references this whenever she talks about how we don’t get to choose when we die.
Sam also references free will. Even though we can’t choose when we die, we can choose how we live. By being a good person, a kind person, we can die well when our time does come. Because of this, author Lauren Oliver presents both fate and free will as having a significant role to play in life.
