Suicide In Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why

In Jay Asher’s Novel Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), the characters struggle through many different ideas as they cope with how they played a role in Hannah Baker’s decision to commit suicide. While the idea of being the reason someone chooses to take their own life is not an easy thought to wrap one’s head around, and a thought that no one would even like to consider is true, Asher takes on this idea and helps teenagers come to terms with suicide. Thirteen Reasons Why forces the reader to reflect on the idea that every choice that one makes has an impact on everyone and everything around them.

Immediately at the start of the novel Asher is asking the reader to come to terms with how the choices humans make, in a constantly connected society,

can affect others. When the first tape starts we, as the reader, are slowly let into the story of Hannah and how she recently committed suicide, and are able to view the emotion that Clay feels upon hearing her voice. Hannah’s suicide is the first choice that alters the lives of everyone in Clay and Hannah’s reality. When Hannah made the decision to swallow pills and end her own life she made a choice that affected everyone who came in contact with her; "I [Clay] felt like crying when I watched Jenny walk out of Biology. Every time I saw a reaction like that, with her, with Mr. Porter, it threw me back to the moment I found out about Hannah myself. When I did cry"(Asher 133). Hannah believed she was taking a course of action that would make everything better, but actions have consequences; by taking her life she transformed the future for her classmates. Hannah did not take into consideration the lives that she had touched. Even what may have seemed to Hannah like a meaningless interaction, it still made an impact on everyone's lives. Not just the lives of the people who went to school with her were affected, but also her parent’s lives as well:
"The day after her suicide was the first time I found myself at [Hannah's parent's store], standing outside the front door. A single sheet of paper taped to the front window said, WELL BE OPEN SOON in thick black marker.....A few days later, I went back. Even more notes were stuck to the glass....They'll be back soon, I thought. Unlike old age or cancer, no one anticipates a suicide. They simply left without a change to get thing in order."(72)
This shows that not only were Hannah's parents left stunned, but they were also left stricken by grief that kept them from their livelihood. The quickly written notice and the delivery notes are a great example to show how Hannah's choice affected her parents. They never expected to lose their teenage daughter; they left in a hurry, distraught. They left for days or weeks, unable to return to their normal life before Hannah.
Obviously this story, and the tapes it contains, would not exist if the choices that Hannah’s classmates made had not guided her to overdosing.

The tapes are the centerpiece of the story and the largest motif for showing the impact that people have on those around them— even if they do not realize it. While it would be easy to write a paper on every person on the tape and how they made an impression on Hannah’s life, the focus is on Alex and his story. Alex’s story affected many people – not just Hannah. Alex’s Best of Freshman Class and Worst of Freshman Class list affected everyone whose name made that list. Hannah is not afraid to call him out on that fact; "There are some sick and twisted people out there, Alex – and maybe I'm one of them— but the point is, when you hold people up for ridicule, you have to take responsibility when other people act on it" (53). Sure, the way this list objectified women let them be handled like they were toys for men, but it definitely hit every girl’s self-esteem. The perfect example of this is the fight that Hannah and Jessica have in the café. The whole fight started over their names being on that list. While Alex made the list as a fun joke, he unknowingly ruined a friendship; Isolating Hannah further. “It’s a punch in the stomach and a slap in the face. It's a knife in my back..."(68). Alex's quest for popularity in a new school left him unaware that the choice he was making to pass around a list, a list that idolized the way his

fellow females looked, could leave many of them self-conscious. The reader knows that the list affects Hannah and Jessica, but they cannot be sure how it affected the other young women on the list. The reader could assume it must have affected the others on the list in some way.
One final example of how Asher wanted his readers to reflect on how choices affect other was Hannah's choice to send out the tapes after her suicide.

Yes, the whole point of the tapes was for Hannah's classmates to realize how they impacted other people, but Hannah also impacted people when she started to send the tapes around. Hannah exposed extremely personal secrets to multiple people without their knowledge. The people who did something to make it onto the tapes were probably already aware that they treated Hannah poorly in some way. They were already upset about Hannah and they were likely rethinking every action that they could have done to influence Hannah's decision. Now their interactions with Hannah were floating around for fourteen people to hear. Every time they heard the tapes and sent them onto the next person they were left emotionally and physically drained. "I've got to admit, it took me a few days to pull myself together. But when I returned, Justin Foley looked like hell. Then Alex. And I thought, okay, most of these people deserved it" (236). Tyler's tape is the perfect example of this. What Tyler put Hannah through was not just something petty or shameful, but it was also illegal. Tyler had to hear all about what he did in detail and send the tapes on for everyone else to hear. He then had to trust that out of fear the tapes would make it through the list – saving his story from being heard by everyone in school and in town. While the readers never hear

Tyler's response to the tape, Asher uses Clay's inner dialogue to summarize the ideas that are going through everyone's mind; "I can’t imagine what it was like for him to mail out these tapes. To know he was sending his secret into the world....It must have been terrifying for him to hear this. And it must be hell knowing he's not the only one" (78). Hannah shamed Tyler in front of everyone on those tapes. She left him defenseless; the reader already knows that people were throwing rocks at Tyler's window, but who knows how else this affected him. He may have been bullied at school – this may have even caused him to become isolated like Hannah did. He could have considered suicide after he realized his story was going to be displayed for his classmates, and even a teacher, to hear. Sure, what Tyler did was wrong, but did he deserve what life gave him after these tapes went around? Did anyone on the tapes? The reader will never truly know. The reader knows how they guided Hannah down the path she took, but are left wondering about the path that Hannah guided those around her down.
Jay Asher left questions for his readers to ponder. He not only wanted his readers to learn a lesson about suicide, but he also wanted his readers to see the bigger picture. Asher uses the theme of choices to make his readers stop and question the choices they are making every day. He wants them to consider how what they do or say – even if they think it is harmless – can affect everyone around them. This is not just an important lesson to prevent suicide, but just for adolescents to learn in general. Teaching people to think about the consequence of their actions allows them to make better decisions and to "think before they act". Asher wanted to teach adolescents how to navigate situations properly and to consider how their actions can make a lasting impact on others.