65 pages • 2 hours read
Catherine Ryan HydePay It Forward
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
PrologueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “October 2002”
Chris Chandler reflects on the beginnings of “the movement that changed the world” (7). He introduces himself as the investigative reporter who made known the disfigured teacher and the twelve-year-old boy who “didn’t seem all that remarkable on the outside, but who could see past his teacher’s face” (7).
To explain this now global phenomenon, Chandler tells a more recent story of his car dying in the middle of a busy intersection, and how a stranger helped him push it off to the side of the road. The stranger then gave him his own car, a new silver Acura, telling Chandler:“‘A great deal of generosity has come into my life lately…I can well afford something new, so why not give as good as I’ve received’” (8). Chandler explains that these instances of generosity have become commonplace.
Trevor’s extra-credit assignment changed Chandler, who realized its importance too late. He wrote books trying to figure out what made Trevor different from other people, but even Rueben didn’t have the answers: “People gradually stopped needing to know why” (10), and Chandler gave up being a reporter.
Prologue Analysis
The prologue sets up the reader for the events of the story. Told through the lens of Chris Chandler, the prologue provides the reader with background that might be narratively awkward or confusing if it were placed anywhere else. It is told from a future perspective, as if all of these events have already happened, in part to give credibility to these seemingly incredulous acts. The prologue establishes authority within the narrative, as readers are expected to believe in this fictitious world in which everyone treats each other in unconscionably kind and compassionate ways.
Similarly, the prologue also sets Chandler up as the compiler of this narrative, allowing for less confusion as the novel switches between perspectives. This story is then not merely a single narrative, but rather an interwoven collection of narratives which all point towards the theme of paying it forward.
