Ramiro Balaguer

Claudia Reyes
English 05
12/12/14
Thirteen Reasons Why

Does every action cause a reaction? The novel Thirteen Reasons Why, written
by Jay Asher, is about a teenage boy named Clay Jensen who received a set of tapes
made by Hannah Baker that reveals Hannah's thirteen reasons why she committed
suicide. At first, Clay doesn't want to listen doesn't want to listen to the tapes because
he believes her secrets should be buried with her. Then, Hannah calls out Clay's name
in one of her tapes, and consequently, he wants to find out why Hannah thought he
was one of the people responsible for her death. All in one night, Clay listens to
Hannah's voice in all of her tapes, and at the same time follows her words all around
his own town. This novel supports the idea that every action has a reaction when
Tyler Down stalks Hannah Baker, when Courtney Crimsen makes Hannah think they
were friends, and when Jenny Kurtz crashes into a stop sign after leaving a party.

One of the incidents that the author portrays for the idea that every action has
a reaction is in cassette two, side B. Here, Hannah mentions that she's being stalked
by Tyler Down on her way home, as well s when she's inside her home, and then
takes pictures of Hannah through her bedroom window. "For example, you'd better be
quiet- extremely quiet- if you're going to be a Peeping Tom. Because what if they
heard? Guess what, Tyler Down? I found out." In reaction to this and Hanna's death,
Marcus Cooley bullied Tyler Down after he listened to Hannah's tapes as they were

passed down from person to person. In chapter six of 13 Reasons Why, Clay found
Marcus in front of Tyler's house and said "You're on the tapes too, right?" Marcus
answers, "So are you, Clay." This shocked Clay, so then he said "What makes us
different from him?" Marcus answers, "He's a Peeping Tom. He's a freak. He looked
into Hannah's window, so why not break his?" In response to Hannah's action of
accusing Tyler of being the Peeping Tom, Marcus would begin to throw rocks at
Tyler's bedroom window for what he did.

Another of the incidents is when Courtney Crimsen made Hannah believe that
they were friends by going with her to Hanna's house to catch the Peeping Tom. In
Hannah's cassette three, side A, she says "Posed. What an interesting word to sum up
Courtney's take. Because when you're posed, you put on your best smile. I don't think
you do this intentionally, Courtney. And that's why I put on these tapes. To let you
know that what you do affects others. More specifically, it affects me." When Hannah
found out Courtney was only using her to get a ride to a party, Hannah took a picture
of them together at a party and was later made public when it was posted in Monet's
Cafe to backfire Courtney's rumor of Hannah. Courtney did not like this very much.
Also, in cassette three, side A, Hannah says "And yet the whole time Courtney was
using me, she probably thought she was polishing up her image in my eyes." As the
party goes on, Hannah was told by a guy a rumor of Hannah and says, "Ready for this
everyone? Our little Miss Crimsen told this guy, and whoever else was standing
within earshot, that I've got a few surprises buried in my dresser drawers." A few
moments later, she tells Tyler Down "I want you to take a picture of me. Me and
Courtney." Then, Hannah tells Courtney to take a picture with her, but Courtney
doesn't want to. Hannah responded, "Why not, Courtney? Why did you invite me

here? Please don't tell me I was just a chauffeur. I mean, I thought we were becoming
friends." Courtney says, " We are friends". They took the picture together, but during
the picture, Hannah tells Courtney " If you want to borrow anything from my dresser,
Courtney, all you need to do is ask." After that night, Hannah never respected
Courtney the same way.

The last of the few occasions tat the author portrayed to the idea in the novel
that every action has a reaction, is when Jenny Kurtz offered Hannah a ride home
from a party and she had already left, she crashed her car into a stop sign, and never
reported the hazard to the police. In Hannah's sixth cassette, side A, she mentioned,
"And then it hit..." "The front wheel on my side slammed into and jumped the curb. A
wooden post smacked into your front bumper and snapped like a toothpick." A few
moments later, Hannah said that this is how Jenny reacted to the crash, "Nobody obey
the stops signs anyway. They just roll on through." But Jenny was wrong. That hazard
caused a fatal car accident of the owners of Hannah's house after she died.

The novel Thirteen Reasons Why supports the idea that every action has a
reaction when Tyler Down stalks Hannah Baker to her house and takes pictures of her
through Hannah's bedroom window, when Courtney Crimsen makes Hannah think
they were friends and only used Hannah to go to a party, and when Jenny Kurtz
crashes into a stop sign after leaving a party and caused a fatal car accident. The
author portrayed the idea with Tyler Down because after Tyler stalked Hannah and
Marcus knew about it, Tyler started to get bullied by Marcus. Since Hannah found out
that Courtney was just using her, Hannah made Tyler take a picture of them together
at a party having fun, and posted the picture at Monet's so many people believed they

were friends, even though Courtney didn't believe that. Another of the incidents that
portrays the idea is when Jennys crashed into the stop sign, didn't report it to the
police, and later caused a fatal accident because of her mistake. The biggest incident
of the novel that portrays the idea that every action has a reaction, is that Hannah
committed suicide because of all of the occasions that happened with all of her
friends, classmates, and all of the people that abused her in any way or even made her
feel bad. The moral to this novel is to always be aware, and take responsibility, of
your own actions. A person should always think and say how would I feel if he, or
she, did the same thing I did to him, or her? That is why everyone should think before
they act, or else things would not come out the way they like it.