66 pages • 2 hours read
Jay AsherThirteen Reasons Why
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A 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
The Damaging Effect of Rumors on Reputation: Concealing One’s True Character
Content Warning: The following analysis contains discussions of suicide, rape, and sexual assault.
In William Shakespeare’s Othello—a foundational text about suicide—Iago comments that “[r]eputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving” (2.4.268-70). Hannah Baker discovers this for herself in Thirteen Reasons Why. Her high school career is dogged by false rumors that give her an undeserved reputation for promiscuity. Throughout the novel, Asher illustrates how rumors affect how others perceive and act toward someone, negatively affect one’s thoughts, and cause people to become projections of damaging narratives.
Hannah’s hopes for a fresh start in Crestmont suggest that she had trouble with rumors about herself in her old town. This suggestion forms part of the tapestry of offstage action in the novel that the reader must infer—the most significant other example being each character listening to the tapes—which in itself mimics the uncertain and gap-filling quality of rumor. Unfortunately, Justin starts the metaphorical snowball rolling with a rumor that he and Hannah did more than kiss. By bragging that he “felt up” Hannah, Justin creates a false impression of her character and her behavior, one that leads others to judge her. Justin’s rumor steals Hannah’s innocence: He cheapens her first kiss and sexualizes her prematurely. Hannah blames this rumor for creating her bad reputation, and initiating all the negative events that undermine her mental health and lead her to take her life.
Hannah comments that “you can’t disprove a rumor” (30) using a double negative that underscores the depressive tone of the novel. This somewhat fatalistic belief contributes to her increasing feeling of hopelessness. Rumors have an especially insidious effect on Hannah because of her sense that high school is all about keeping up appearances. The boys at the party get into a fistfight rather than appear weak. Hannah comments that “[t]heir reputations were more important than their faces” (112); in this context of appearances, therefore, the intangible appearance of “reputation” is placed above the tangible appearances of “faces.” When the unnamed boy at the first party tells her to “calm down, that it didn’t matter” that he believed what other people say about her, Hannah protests angrily: “Yes! It does matter!” (115). Her exclamation here is void of poetic language found elsewhere in her narrative, highlighting her struggles to reveal her true character in the face of rumor. Hannah’s unearned reputation affects how strangers like that boy, Alex Standall, Jessica Davis, Tyler Down, Marcus Cooley, Bryce Walker, and even Clay Jensen treat her.
Hannah is sensitive to others’ reputations: Courtney Crimson’s is “flawless” and Clay’s is also pristine. Hannah is conscious of a gulf between her and Clay caused by their reputations. Although Clay argues “we were the same” (216), even Clay fears that the rumors about Hannah are true, which, if so, would ruin his ideal mental image of her. Rumors hold Clay back from connecting with Hannah. In this way, Clay also lets Hannah down, which becomes a key element of his character development and therefore, ultimately, the structure of the novel which ends with Clay acting on his learning.
The rumors about Hannah reflect a sexual double standard. It is more socially permissible for boys to brag about their sexual escapades—as Justin did to improve his reputation. The opposite is true for girls. Sexual rumors about Hannah reduce her to a sexual object, allowing boys like Alex, Bryce, Marcus, and Tyler to see Hannah as merely a body part and in some of their cases, giving “permission” to sexually assault her. Sexual objectification is another of the novel’s major themes. The sexual rumors stigmatize Hannah. She is “slut shamed” or criticized for her perceived sexual activity. The continued rumors about Hannah therefore act as “social and relational sanctions” (Goblet Margot and Glowacz Fabienne. “Slut Shaming in Adolescence: A Violence against Girls and Its Impact on Their Health”). This point emphasizes the idea that teenagers do attempt to enforce rules and discipline one another in the novel, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Hannah keenly feels the blow to her reputation because it is a false representation of herself. She realizes that people at school see her only in terms of her reputation, as “Bad Hannah” (66), a monosyllabic epithet that removes her from her poetic nature. No one in school truly knows who she is inside. Her poem “Soul Alone” reflects her feelings of isolation and her desire to strip away false appearances and be known. This discrepancy between her true self and how others see her negatively impacts Hannah’s self-image and mental health. As her reputation grows, Hannah feels she cannot control her life, and cannot affect others’ perceptions.
Hannah’s mental health conditions make it difficult for her to transcend her reputation and feel self-assured with her character. She believes, fatalistically, that “the rumors and lies…will always be a part of [her]” (211). Tragically, Hannah literally and figuratively steps into this narrative by fulfilling the negative reputation that others have given her. Hannah’s tapes attempt to posthumously fix the reputation that she could not fix in real life, although she ruins others’ reputations in the process. Clay notes that the tapes cause him pain and shock as with each story, “[a] reputation twists into someone I don’t recognize” (133), highlighting the idea that Clay becomes a less reliable secondary opinion on Hannah’s story throughout the novel. Hannah’s tapes expose her version of the truth. She comments that although the truth is less popular than juicy gossip, her true-life tapes are the story “you won’t forget” (29). Her truth sets Hannah free, but mires those on her list in guilt and regret.
Every Action Counts
One of the purposes of Hannah’s tapes is to show both readers and characters that their smallest action can have a profound impact—positive or negative—on someone else’s life. Similarly, refusing to act can have an equally powerful effect. The choices that characters make not only affect others, but themselves. In a “Between the Lines” interview included in the 2007 edition of the novel, Asher confirms that this is the specific message that he wants readers to take away from the book. Asher emphasizes that while Hannah’s decision to die by suicide was her own, he comments that “it’s also important to be aware of how we treat others” because one can never know what that person may be experiencing, or how our actions “might be adding to his/her pain” (np). Asher uses Hannah’s character to show how much little things matter, whether one is struggling with a mental health issue, or not.
Justin’s little lie starts the chain of events that leads to Hannah’s suicide. Hannah tells Justin, “[i]t may seem like a small role now, but it matters. In the end, everything matters” (13). Actions have consequences, regardless of whether they are foreseen or not. Hannah tells Alex that it does not matter why he put her name on the “hot” list. “It’s about the repercussions to [her]. It’s about those things you didn’t plan—things you couldn’t plan” (42). The repetition of the word “plan” draws attention to the fact that this is being narrated through a highly orchestrated series of events: the recording and distribution of the tapes. Hannah believes that all the rumors, lies, and betrayals that she experiences tie back to Alex’s list. Each of the people on the tape is responsible for how others interpret their actions. Hannah believes that “when you hold people up for ridicule, you have to take responsibility when other people act on it” (53). Her voice is often didactic as a mouthpiece for the message that Asher attempts to pass to readers.
Many of the characters’ actions that hurt Hannah are small offenses on their own, and even Hannah tells herself to stop being “petty” and “pessimistic” and “making mountains out of molehills” (145)—an analogy that contrasts her mountainous challenges with the flat characterization of several of her antagonists—until Marcus irrevocably betrays her trust. The volume of petty cruelties pushes Hannah to the tipping point where she sees suicide as a viable option. It is an emotional death by a thousand cuts.
Hannah not only wants others to know the repercussions of their acts towards her—how they hurt her— but to feel their own negative repercussions of guilt, regret, and fear. Hannah’s tapes expose their crimes to one another, forever changing their reputations and how they will perceive one another. These ramifications are a significant example of the offstage action that the reader is left to imagine. Clay dreads returning to school and facing the others on the tapes. Hannah also threatens that some of their poor choices merit wider social consequences should her tapes go public, showing that even the small acts have wider ramifications and injure more people than just Hannah.
The people on Hannah’s list are not the only ones who make poor, or spiteful choices that affect Hannah: She also makes bad decisions that compromise her happiness and self-esteem. Hannah does not call the police on the Peeping Tom or to report the sign, highlighting the mistrust in authoritative adult figures in the novel. Hannah acts against her intuition and common sense in trusting people like Marcus. Both she and Clay know this is a bad idea. Hannah hates Bryce but uses him to self-sabotage and emotionally harm herself, something she later regrets. Hannah’s choices externalize her emotionally fragile mental state.
Just as overt, thoughtless actions can have detrimental effects, the choice to refuse to act, or take responsibility, can have powerful repercussions. Clay and Hannah both feel guilty for failing to act. Clay imagines Hannah’s voice, blaming him for not trying harder, though he also pushes back at Hannah, accusing her of inaction in trying to help herself. Clay insists that he was there for her, but she did not reach out. The narrative structure of the story, in which Hannah’s story is layered intimately on top of Clay’s present life, makes the past seem tangible and therefore changeable to Clay who must learn to accept his past inaction. Hannah also feels guilty for not preventing the rape of Jessica, or reporting the stop sign accident and preventing the fatal crash. Both Hannah and Clay feel they have blood on their hands—or consciences. Guilt is rooted in how one’s inaction affects others.
Hannah suggests that the tapes will change their listeners’ lives if they choose, “leaving any changes they bring to your lives completely up to you” (202). Clay shows that he is profoundly changed by the tapes, and that he internalizes Hannah’s message that “[n]o one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people” (156). This quotation presents another directly didactic passage in which Hannah becomes a mouthpiece for a message to the reader. Clay snaps out of his complacent inaction and reaches out to Skye, an act of connection that he did not make before listening to Hannah’s tapes. Clay hopes that this small, positive action will help Skye and keep her from the same fate as Hannah.
“Just Relax”: The Trauma of Sexual Objectification
Hannah cynically jokes that the Valentine’s survey should have listed “drinking and sex” as two of the three most popular things for Crestmont high schoolers to do on weekends (121). Sex—rumored and real—plays a huge role in the novel. Hannah and other female characters experience sexual objectification. Asher shows how its dehumanizing effects affect Hannah’s reputation, mental health, and her decision to die by suicide.
On side A of the very first tape, Hannah angrily declares, “Hannah Baker is not, and never was a slut. Which begs the question, What have you heard?” (23). The rhetorical nature of the question draws attention to the novel’s layered temporality: The listener cannot only not respond because of this rhetorical device, but because Hannah, speaking in the past, is dead in the present. Justin’s lie causes others to see Hannah’s character in a negative sexual context, sealing, Hannah believes, her reputation as a “slut.” Her adoption of this language highlights her absorption of the objectification that she has experienced.
Notably, the rumors about Hannah are all sexual in nature. With his “hot/not list,” Alex capitalizes on Justin’s boast and reduces Hannah to a body part: now, others only see her “Best Ass.” Hannah believes that the list gives Bryce tacit permission to sexually assault in the liquor store, grabbing Hannah’s ass and boasting about it. Marcus also attempts to grope Hannah, and Zach takes revenge when he fails to get Hannah’s attention and score a date. Hannah notes that the list, and Justin’s lie, “gives people—some people—the go-ahead to treat you like you’re nothing but that specific body part” (44). The em dashes fragmenting this sentence reflect the fragmented image of body parts separated from someone’s “soul.”
In the study “The Effects of Sexual Objectification on Women’s Mental Health,” Emma Rooney notes that each of the behaviors of the male characters mentioned above are acts of interpersonal sexual objectification, which include “behaviors like touching, fondling, or pinching someone inappropriately against her will, degrading sexual gestures, and sexual harassment or coercion as unwanted sexual advances” (Rooney, Emma. “The Effects of Sexual Objectification on Women’s Mental Health.” Applied Psychology Opus, 2023). In addition to unwanted advances, sexually suggestive looks and comments about a woman’s body are also sexually objectifying. Rooney notes that these objectifying behaviors are considered gendered, sexist microaggressions.
Justin, Alex, Bryce, Marcus, and Zach see Hannah primarily as a sexual object. They are uninterested in knowing the “real” Hannah: her thoughts, feelings, and unique soul, exemplified by her poetry. Instead, they view her through the lens of her falsely assigned sexual reputation. They see only her body, which becomes a tool for them to use and satisfy their desires. Alex uses Hannah to get revenge on Jessica. Bryce and Marcus want to use Hannah to fulfill their sexual needs. Zach feels burned that Hannah will not consider him in a romantic or sexual way, as he likely assumes that she does with other boys. To them all, Hannah is not an individual with thought and agency. Hannah is sexually objectified.
Bryce is the most sexually violent offender in the novel. Hannah knows that Bryce treats his girlfriends “like meat” (260), offering a grossly material illustration of the bodies of these girls. Bryce violently twists girls’ arms, dominating them and attempting to force them to his will. Bryce’s patronizing directive to girls to “just relax” while he abuses them reveals his feeling of entitlement to use them sexually, regardless of whether they give consent. This is starkly, brutally evident in Bryce’s rape of Jessica. Although Hannah does not see either of these characters, Bryce’s “just relax” comment identifies him, and Clay had previously identified Jessica as part of the couple on the couch with Justin.
Even the girls, Jessica and Courtney, believe and spread rumors about Hannah’s promiscuity: Jessica chooses to believe Alex over Hannah, destroying their friendship, and Courtney lies that Hannah has a collection of sex toys. The girls contribute to the social stereotypes about Hannah; like Hannah, they have internalized the language and actions of sexual shaming and objectification. Hannah’s sexualized reputation even warns off Clay who is wary of connecting with Hannah because she has “quite a reputation” (39)—again relying on euphemism which obscures the damage in the comment.
Sexual objectification has devastating effects on its victims. It is an element of “gender oppression, systemic sexism, sexual harassment, and violence against women” (Rooney, “Effects of Sexual Objectification.” 2023). Sexual objectification can lead to mental health conditions including depression and anxiety. Readers see how devastated Hannah is because of her sexualized reputation. It affects her mental health and stability, isolates her, and makes her doubt and devalue herself to the point where she self-objectifies and sabotages her true self by having sex with Bryce, as she attempts to fulfill a narrative not written by her—something that contrasts with the fact that she narrates her story on the tapes.
Listening to Hannah’s tapes, Clay, and readers gain awareness of the detrimental impact of female sexual objectification. Asher uses Clay’s learning to stand in for the readers: He learns to recognize and stop gendered aggressions and microaggressions.
The Lessons of Death
The theme of death is central to the novel, as Hannah details her painful journey from hopeful freshman to someone who dies by suicide. Her tapes are both a personal, poignant suicide note and a lesson for her listeners. The broad theme of death underlies other thematic elements in the novel, including love, grief and guilt, and the major topic of suicide.
Hannah’s tapes are a contemporary elegy: a free-verse poem of loss and sadness. Hannah shares the grief that she feels about losing herself, commenting that she views the tapes as “a tight, well-connected, emotional ball of words. In other words, a poem” (178). Hannah uses care and planning to craft her last words, lulling the reader into a sense of intimacy, and Asher’s narrative structure gives Hannah’s voice immediacy. However, the finality of Hannah’s death is ever present.
On Clay’s tape, Hannah addresses him as her “Romeo” and likens herself to Juliet, alluding to Shakespeare’s tragic tale of star-crossed young lovers. Like Othello, Romeo and Juliet is another of Shakespeare’s treatments of suicide: both Romeo and Juliet die by suicide. Although Hannah does not kill herself solely because of her missed connection with Clay—the boy she hoped was her soul mate—Hannah does show that she feels that she lacks true love and regard from everyone around her. On her last tape, she accuses, “[a] lot of you cared, just not enough” (280). Lack of love from others coupled with Hannah’s loss of self-love contribute to her death.
Hannah’s tapes teach Clay a lot about death, and himself. Listening to them, Clay experiences acute self-blame paired with an overwhelming sense of loss. His false belief that he could have altered the outcome is a kind of hindsight bias that is initiated by the immediacy of Hannah’s narrative that Clay listens to. After hearing the tapes, Clay retrospectively recognizes the signs of Hannah’s mental health crisis, though her narrative makes him feel as though he is recognizing them in the present. Clay desperately wants to turn back time, but painfully understands that “[y]ou can’t rewrite the past” (60), a realization that forms part of the layers of the past and the present in the novel that both feel as immediate as each other. The layers make it all the more poignant that Clay is “searching for a connection to [Hannah]” after her death (72).
As the tapes advance, Hannah’s mental health deteriorates. She transitions from being unable to say the word “suicide” to planning her death—and her tapes—in detail. Although she tries to imagine her funeral—in a moment of narrative time-bending that imagines, in the past, a future that has not yet happened in the present—and decides against hanging herself so as not to unduly upset her parents, she does not consider the potential effects of her death on those who she knows do care about her. Hannah’s tapes are not deeply self-reflective; Clay and Tony are the only two characters that readers see who express heartfelt grief over Hannah’s death.
In addition to guilt and grief, Clay feels angry at Hannah for not reaching out to him. He declares, “I hate what you did, Hannah” (145). To Clay, “suicide” is “[s]uch a disgusting word” (164); with their narrative voices in counterpoint, Clay rejects the word “suicide” while Hannah begins to use it. Clay’s comment exemplifies that stigmatization of suicide and shows his lack of understanding about the mental health conditions that can cause suicidal ideations. The nosy, lackluster discussion of suicide in Hannah’s Peer Communications class that concludes that the suicidal note-writer just wants attention perpetuates another myth about suicide: that people who talk about suicide are not serious about taking their lives. Both Clay and the students in this class highlight the lack of education about suicide for teenagers.
Ultimately, Clay learns that life is fragile. It is filled with both good things and hard things, and one never knows how long someone may be alive. Hannah’s tapes, in keeping with Asher’s attempts to offer lessons to the reader through Hannah, do offer positive messages about life: Don’t wait to show someone what they mean to you, and carefully consider how your actions affect others.
