Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Thirteen Reasons Why, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rumors and Reputation
Gender, Sexualization, and Agency
Guilt and Blame
Parental Care and Attention
Summary
Analysis
Hannah begins the next side of the tape by reminding her listeners of the Oh My Dollar Valentines, a project that the cheer squad organized each at school each year to raise funds for their camp. It involved participants filling in a survey and paying a dollar to find out who their “one true soul mate” was (based on their answers to the survey). If participants paid five dollars, they’d receive their top five matches. Hannah filled out her survey because she loved surveys—that’s the reason she bought teen magazines. (As an aside, she says that the makeup tips in them were also helpful, which surprises Clay, who thought Hannah never wore makeup.) Hannah also mentions that the results of the career survey the students completed in freshman year told her she’d be a good lumberjack—the same result Clay got.
The survey seems silly and harmless enough—the suggestion that Hannah would be a good lumberjack, for instance, is quite far removed from her daily life, and the idea that anyone could find their “one true soul mate” from a survey that a group of students has analyzed is comedic. Still, Clay feels a connection to Hannah because of their mutual “lumberjack” result. The fact that they have this in common hints at the fact that they might have a deeper connection than Clay realized. At the same time, his incorrect assumption that Hannah didn’t wear makeup suggests he idealized her and found her attractive.
Themes
Hannah describes the Oh My Dollar Valentine survey. The first part asked the participant to describe themselves; the second part asked them to describe what they were looking for in a match. Hannah realized as she filled hers out that she was describing a particular person at school. Clay reflects on his answers and wishes he’d filled his survey out seriously, but he actually filled it out as the character of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, which gave him a strange list of matches.
Hannah doesn’t name the person she thought about when she filled in the survey, keeping her listeners in suspense. Meanwhile, Clay’s idea to fill his survey out as a fictional character suggests he might not take dating as seriously as some of his classmates and is slightly removed from student life, keeping his distance from the overexcited rumors people spread about one another.
Themes
On the tape, Hannah’s story picks up just after she finishes the survey and drops it in the box in the office. When she turns around, a teacher greets her and mentions she saw a photo of Hannah and Courtney together in the yearbook room. The teacher says that yearbook photos are great because they memorialize your experiences forever, which makes Hannah panic: she suddenly realizes she has no control over what people think of her. She reconsiders doing the survey—will it just be an excuse for the guys whose lists she ends up on to ask her out, and would they be excited to do that because of all the rumors they’ve heard about her? If they act the way she expects—taking advantage of getting her name on their lists—she feels like she might just “give up.” Still, she leaves the survey in the box and walks out of the office.
The teacher’s comments about Hannah and Courtney are important for two reasons. First, they suggest that the teacher has no idea about the reality of Hannah’s life and friendships—like many other adults in Hannah’s life, she’s unaware of how isolated Hannah is feeling. Second, they prove to Hannah that people will believe things about her based on what they see and hear elsewhere, not based on what she tells them about herself. She has no control over her own reputation. But even as she realizes this, she decides to participate in the survey, a sign that she’s optimistic about what the results could be.
Themes
As Clay listens to Hannah’s tape, he wonders whether he’d have gotten Hannah’s name on his list if he’d filled his survey out honestly. And would he have called her? Ever since he met her, he’d been preoccupied with her, bothered by how she didn’t seem to match up with the rumors people shared about her. But he’d been too afraid to get to know her and find out what she was really like. Last summer, he applied for a job at the movie theater because Hannah worked there (though he pretended he didn’t know she did).
Clay imagines alternate realities, but isn’t sure if, given the chance, he’d have pursued a closer relationship with Hannah. Her reputation put him off, which emphasizes that rumors have the power to isolate people, making them seem less approachable or attractive, or even just more unpredictable. Hannah’s reputation, for instance, made Clay too scared to find out what she was really like.
Themes
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Hannah’s story picks up the day the survey results come out. Hannah isn’t sure if she wants to receive her list. But she goes to the office and finds it empty, so she asks the cheerleader at the counter for her results. She pays five dollars. The cheerleader prints out a list of five names. As Hannah looks at the list, the cheerleader asks who’s on it. Hannah thinks the cheerleader is joking, but she shares the names anyway, and they agree it’s not a bad list—though Hannah doesn’t think it’s an especially good one.
Hannah wavers between cynicism and hope. Her decision to pay for the survey results shows that when Hannah feels safe—when people aren’t looking at her and judging her—she’s able to indulge in that hope. She’s even able to share something with another person, making a genuine connection with them, which is something she’s begun to stop herself from doing due to her suspicion of others’ motives.
Themes
Hannah thinks one boy on the list is cute, but the cheerleader tries to convince her not to pursue him. Hannah doesn’t push her to ask why not, though on the tape, looking back, she says she should have. At that moment in the office, her phone rings. She doesn’t recognize the caller. He tells her he paid for her phone number, and Hannah and the cheerleader realizes Hannah’s name showed up on his Valentine’s list. They work out it’s not any of the boys on Hannah’s list, but he tells her Hannah was the first name on his. Finally, she asks him for his name, but then she sees him standing outside the office: Marcus Cooley.
The cheerleader implies that the boy Hannah thinks is cute is an unsafe person to be around. The cheerleader doesn’t share any details, which means that Hannah doesn’t take her warning seriously. This moment emphasizes that not only do young women feel threatened by young men’s behavior, they’re also hesitant to talk about that behavior in a specific way, which allows young men to continue to intimidate and assault their female peers without real consequences.
Themes
Hannah knows that Marcus likes to tell jokes and goof around, so she doesn’t immediately trust him. She says he’s lying about having her name on his list, but he shows the list to her. They agree to meet at Rosie’s after school for ice cream. The cheerleader begs Hannah to let her brag about the match, but Hannah says she has to wait until tomorrow. On the tape, she doesn’t share the cheerleader’s name: she says she did nothing wrong and was very sweet. (Clay knows for sure that the cheerleader is Jenny Kurtz, who, when she heard about Hannah’s death, walked right out of class without asking to be excused.) Hannah says that after what happened at Rosie’s, she tried to avoid the cheerleader, but she couldn’t avoid her forever—the cheerleader will make a later, named appearance in the tapes.
Hannah shows she’s still hopeful about forming new relationships when she agrees to meet Marcus at Rosie’s. She doesn’t let her suspicion completely stop her from trying to connect with Marcus. Meanwhile, her statements about the cheerleader are ominous and build suspense. While Jenny’s behavior in this moment is sweet and innocent, she clearly goes on to do something that will negatively affect Hannah later. Hannah’s storytelling style reminds her listeners that what they think is true might not be the whole story—and that even people who are mostly kind can still act in destructive ways.
Themes
Hannah goes to Rosie’s to meet Marcus. Though she’s never been there before, she’s heard about it through stories: someone had their first “under-the-bra” experience there, and Alex had his first fight just outside. Hannah’s always wanted to go, but not alone, so meeting Marcus is a good excuse. She doesn’t trust Marcus, especially because he’s friends with Alex, but she wants to trust him because she wants other people to trust her despite whatever rumors they’ve heard about her.
Hannah takes herself out of her comfort zone, making real effort to be involved in the things other people are doing around her despite the fact that she feels so isolated from most of her classmates thanks to the rumors they believe about her. She acts optimistically not because she thinks it’ll benefit her but because she wants to make sure others feel more comfortable.
Themes
Hannah tells the listener to go to Rosie’s and sit at the counter by themselves. They should sit and wait without ordering. As Clay listens to the tape, his phone rings: it’s Clay’s mom. When Clay answers, he finds he can’t speak. His mom asks if everything is all right. He says he’s fine but that he’s still working on the project, and he asks her to bring him the tapes he left in the garage. She says she’s going out anyway to buy more bread for Clay’s packed lunch. Clay asks her to meet him at Rosie’s with the tapes, then he starts walking there.
Clay’s mom interrupts the story and offers practical help. Even just through her interruption, she helps Clay to remember that his world is bigger than just Hannah’s tapes: he’s connected to other people who care about him. She also reveals her attentive, caring nature by mentioning she’s making his lunch for school, a practical detail that reminds readers that, despite the emotional burden the tapes place on Clay, he’s still just a high school student.
Themes
On the tape, Hannah tells the listeners that going to Rosie’s by yourself and sitting at the counter without ordering is an uncomfortable experience: the people around you will wonder whether you’re waiting for someone. She resumes her story. That afternoon, she sits at the counter and waits, watching the clock. After 15 minutes—10 minutes longer than it takes someone to walk there from school—she orders a shake. After 30 minutes, she digs in with her spoon to finish it quickly so she can leave. Hannah thought Marcus was being sincere when he suggested they meet up and she tells herself to calm down. Finally, Marcus enters Rosie’s and sits down beside her, apologizing: he didn’t think she’d turn up.
Hannah is constantly aware she’s being watched. After years of people spreading rumors about her, she’s highly attuned to what people might be thinking of her when they see her. Still, she stays at the counter: a connection to another human being is something she doesn’t take for granted, because relationships have proven difficult for her to maintain. In contrast, Marcus treats the date like a joke, which suggests he treats other people much more casually, perhaps because people have never betrayed or gossiped about him like they’ve done to Hannah.
Themes
Marcus assumed they’d both been joking about going to Rosie’s, but then he’d reconsidered and shown up anyway. But he showed up with a plan: he wanted to move Hannah to a booth near the back of Rosie’s. (On the tape, Hannah tells the listeners to stay at the counter: “It’s more comfortable there.”) Now sitting in the booth, Marcus makes Hannah laugh so hard her stomach hurts. She leans her head on his shoulder, at which he puts his hand on her knee, and she suddenly realizes what his plan is. She stops laughing and asks Marcus what he’s doing. He asks if she wants him to move his hand. She doesn’t answer and doesn’t move away. Marcus’s hand starts to move up her leg. She tries to pry his fingers off her. Some people look over and immediately turn away.
Marcus didn’t come to Rosie’s because he wanted to make a real connection with Hannah—he arrived knowing he could take advantage of her in a sexual way. The fact that he begins to make Hannah feel happy and comfortable—but quickly start to touch her without her consent, confirms what Hannah has been learning since her first few weeks at this school: she can’t trust people who seem to care about her. The other diners’ apathetic responses to Hannah’s distress reinforce the theme of young men disempowering young women to little consequence.
Themes
Clay started to run as he listened to Hannah telling the story of that afternoon, but now he slows down, feeling not physically exhausted but emotionally drained. Rosie’s is across the street. He doesn’t want to go in yet. The movie theater he worked at with Hannah is just a block away. It doesn’t have a red star on Hannah’s map, but Clay feels like it deserves one. He walks toward the theater and peers inside to see the box office where he worked most nights in the summer. He goes inside and leans against one of the movie posters, realizing as he listens to the tape this was the place he could’ve connected with Hannah, but he let the chance slip away.
For Clay, the movie theater holds vivid memories of his time with Hannah. The other red stars on the map have marked out places where others have hurt or betrayed Hannah, so his suggestion that the theater should have its own star suggests that, even though he hasn’t heard his part of the story yet, he thinks he’s at fault because he failed to reach out to Hannah when had the chance while they worked together.
Themes
On the tape, Hannah explains that she had tried to brush off all the events leading up to Marcus touching her at Rosie’s—being betrayed, having her reputation ruined, and having her privacy invaded. She tried to be more optimistic and trusting, but when Marcus took advantage of her, she started to wonder whether she’d ever get control of her life. The next day, she decided to find out how people at school would react to one of the students never coming back.
Hannah has long been aware of the pattern of rejection and disappointment that characterizes her life. Her attempts to keep reaching out to people and hoping that things will get better, though, are beginning to exhaust her. This moment, in which she finds herself physically out of control of her own body, reinforces that exhaustion: no amount of optimism or effort can help her to advocate for herself against such strong odds.
Themes
In the theater lobby, Clay walks up to the box office window and looks inside. He remembers feeling cramped in there, often looking over to where Hannah worked at the popcorn counter. One night, Bryce Walker came in with his then girlfriend and asked Clay to charge her the under-12 rate for a movie ticket. Bryce told Clay, “She won’t be watching the movie anyway.” His girlfriend didn’t find the comment funny and said she’d pay for her own ticket, but Bryce told her to relax: “It was a joke.”
Bryce telling his girlfriend to relax is similar to what the unnamed boy said to Hannah when he grabbed her butt in Blue Spot Liquor, emphasizing that young men constantly get away with belittling the feelings of the young women around them. His entitled attitude and suggestive jokes suggest that he feels comfortable treating his girlfriend like his plaything and disrespecting her.
Themes
Halfway through the movie, Clay remembers, the girl came running out, upset and holding her wrist. Bryce emerged at the end of the movie and went up to Hannah at the concession counter. Hannah laughed at his jokes, which made Clay angry; he wanted to ask Bryce to leave, but he also thought Hannah should be the one to do that. At the end of his shift, Clay approached Hannah and asked her about Bryce, but she told him she didn’t need him to look out for her. Clay wonders why he didn’t try harder to do just that.
Instead of confronting Bryce himself or taking any action in the moment, Clay waited until after Bryce left to talk to Hannah about him. He expected Hannah to take responsibility even when he was unable to do so himself, overlooking the fact that Bryce’s presence might have made her feel threatened. Clay’s inability to interpret her laughter as anything except her having fun emphasizes that he didn’t understand how little power she felt she had in the situation.
Themes
