Thirteen Reasons Why

by

Jay Asher

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Thirteen Reasons Why: Cassette 6: Side A Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Tony tells Clay that Hannah came over to his house. He describes that moment as his chance to help Hannah. Clay says that he had his own chance, too, and Tony replies that everyone holds a little of the blame for Hannah’s death. He tells Clay about the night Hannah came to his house to give him her bike without explaining why. Tony didn’t realize at the time, but now he knows that giving away possessions is a major warning sign of suicide.
Clay and Tony have both realized that many different people contributed to Hannah’s isolation: there wasn’t a single person who caused her death, but each of them is responsible in a small way for her deteriorating mental state.
Themes
Guilt and Blame Theme Icon
On the night Hannah comes to Tony’s house to give him the bike, he tells her he can’t take it without giving her something in return. She looks into his eyes and starts crying, then she asks him how he made the tapes he plays in his car stereo. He tells her about the tape recorder. When she asks if he has anything that can record voices, he goes and gets the tape recorder for her.
Tony’s attempt to help Hannah and reciprocate her kind gesture ends up enabling her to create these tapes. Though he ends up feeling guilty about giving her the means to do so, he has no way of knowing the reason she wants the equipment.
Themes
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A few days after Tony gives Hannah the tape recorder, he arrives home to a package: a set of the tapes. He listens to them, fast-forwarding to find his own name, and when he doesn’t he realizes Hannah has given him the second set of tapes. He calls Hannah’s house. When no one picks up, he tries calling her parents’ store and tells them they need to find Hannah. The next day, Hannah doesn’t come to school, and Tony goes home early. After a few days, he goes back to school and notices that Justin looks terrible; after that, he notices the same thing about Alex. He decides to make sure everyone on the list hears and passes on the tapes.
Tony was the first to figure out that Hannah had died, and he was the person responsible, in a way, for informing her parents. It’s a heavy burden, and one he’s had to hide from most people. By ensuring everyone on the list passes the tapes on, Tony honors Hannah’s last wish—this seems to be his way of channeling his guilty feelings.
Themes
Guilt and Blame Theme Icon
Tony tells Clay it was easy to figure out he had the tapes, because Clay stole Tony’s Walkman. With everyone else, once he knew they should’ve received the tapes, he called them over to his car and held up a tape. He could tell by their reaction whether the previous person had passed the tapes on. Tony guesses Hannah gave him the second set of tapes because by giving her the tape recorder, he’d become part of her story. He tells Clay he has to go home; it’s getting late. As Clay says goodbye, he calls Clay’s mom and asks Tony to say hi. He tells his mom he’s still working on the project but will be home before school to pick up his stuff. Clay thanks Tony earnestly: it felt good to have someone next to him who understood what it felt like listening to the tapes.
The tapes affect their listeners in unique ways. That means Tony can work out who’s heard them by their instant reaction to him holding up a tape. Meanwhile, Clay cares about reassuring his mom and attempts to play along with the untrue story that he’s working on a project with a friend. By pretending to be that friend on the phone call, Tony performs a real act of friendship for Clay. Though they both feel obligation to keep the tapes—and their feelings about them— secret from everyone else, they each know what the other is going through, which makes their connection stronger.
Themes
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Parental Care and Attention Theme Icon
Quotes
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Clay sits on the curb and presses play on the next tape. Hannah continues the story of the party, which she describes as the central knot of all the listeners’ tangled storylines. After she and Justin stop staring at each other, she wanders back into the party and sits down. She wants to leave but feels too weak to walk home. Someone’s hand touches her shoulder: it’s Jenny Kurtz. Hannah addresses Jenny on the tape, and Clay drops his head as he listens. When Jenny finds Hannah at the party, she asks Hannah if she needs a ride home. Hannah lets Jenny help her up and take her to her car. Jenny doesn’t ask her anything about the party, and Hannah feels grateful.
Hannah’s failure to prevent Jessica’s rape confirms Hannah’s own powerlessness—and this realization affects her physically, not just emotionally. Clay seems particularly disappointed to learn that Jenny will have her own tape. She’s someone he thought was genuinely sweet and caring, so he dreads what he’ll learn about her.
Themes
Gender, Sexualization, and Agency Theme Icon
Guilt and Blame Theme Icon
Jenny buckles Hannah into the passenger seat and drives away from the party. It’s lightly raining, and the rhythm of the windshield wiper blades comforts Hannah. Suddenly, the car jolts. The passenger wheel bumps up onto the curb, and a wooden sign snaps beneath the bumper: Jenny drove into a stop sign. Hannah and Jenny sit in the car silently. Then Jenny gets out and checks the dent at the front of her car. (On the tape, Hannah tells Jenny it could be worse—she could’ve hit a living thing. As Clay listens, he knows from Hannah’s comment that she found out about the fatal car crash that happened later that night in the same spot.)
Jenny driving into a stop sign is ironic and symbolic: ironic because she knocked down the object that was meant to slow her down, and symbolic because it represents Hannah’s lack of control over every part of her life. Clay begins to realize the connections between Hannah, the car crash, and his own experience of that night.
Themes
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Hannah resumes her story. Jenny says, “Well, that sucks,” then starts the car again. Hannah stops her from driving off. Jenny insists she’s not drunk, but Hannah tells her to park the car. Jenny tells Hannah not to worry—people don’t even obey stop signs anyway, so by knocking this one down, she just made their actions legal. Hannah insists that Jenny park the car. Jenny tells her to get out. After a long silence, Hannah does so, but she asks to use Jenny’s phone to tell someone about the sign. Jenny refuses, not wanting anyone to trace the call. She tells Hannah to shut the door. When Hannah leaves it open, Jenny reverses the car, grating the underside with the metal stop sign, and speeds away.
Jenny responds casually to knocking down the sign. She doesn’t consider changing her plans. She’s too concerned about keeping her cool and looking out for her driving record to seriously consider the consequences of the stop sign not being there. Hannah tries her hardest to do what she thinks is right, but Jenny responds with defensive anger. Once again, Hannah has no power over a threatening situation.
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On the tape, Hannah addresses Jenny directly, telling her that she got away with more than knocking down a sign. Clay understands now that everyone could’ve tried to stop a part of this story, whether it’s the crash, the rumors, the rape, or Hannah’s death. Hannah tells the listeners that on the night of the party, during the few hours the stop sign was gone, two cars collided, and a senior from their high school died. That student’s death is another thing Hannah feels like she failed to stop. On the day of the senior’s funeral, Hannah remembers, school was quiet. That day in class, Hannah thought about her own funeral for the first time. She could imagine everyone’s lives going on without her, but she couldn’t imagine her funeral: she has no idea what people really think of her.
Hannah recognizes how her actions—and the actions of those around her—can lead to unintended consequences. While other people don’t think twice about the effects of their actions, it’s all Hannah can focus on, and she feels a great responsibility for events far beyond her control. This seems to make her feel utterly hopeless. The fact that she has no idea what people would say at her funeral highlights her lack of perspective on her own life—she feels fundamentally disconnected from other people.
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Rumors and Reputation Theme Icon
Guilt and Blame Theme Icon
Clay has been walking to the intersection with the stop sign while listening to the tape. Now he reaches the sign—a new one, recently replaced, with reflective letters that weren’t there before. He touches the cold metal and thinks about how nobody really talked about Hannah after they found out she died. Her parents buried her body in a different town, and there was no funeral, so nobody really got to talk about how they felt. Clay feels like Hannah didn’t share enough of herself with people for them to get a good idea of her. Clay walks away from the stop sign, but he imagines its huge reflective letters telling Hannah, “Stop!” 
It’s ironic that the stop sign is an improved version of what it used to be. Its reflective letters are presumably more effective in cautioning drivers, but they weren’t there when Hannah was alive, so she and the people around her had less chance of slowing down and acting safely. Metaphorically, this mirrors the tragedy of Hannah’s suicide: the listeners of her tapes can learn from her story and hopefully do better to support their struggling peers in the future, but only after it’s too late for them to do anything to help Hannah.
Themes
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Quotes
Hannah continues her story. After Jenny drives away from Hannah on the night of the party, Hannah walks to a gas station (marked on the map that Hannah included with her tapes). She calls the police from a payphone. When they pick up, she tells them the intersection where Jenny knocked over the stop sign. The person on the line tells her to calm down: the police are already on their way. Hannah thinks Jenny called the police after all, but she later learns that someone else actually called to report a car accident. She walks for hours so she can calm down before sneaking back home. As she walks, the rain turns into mist, and she feels happy imagining herself disappearing into it.
Even when Hannah thinks she’s doing something helpful, she doesn’t know the whole story. She believes that she’s calling to report the broken sign, but the truth is, there’s already been a fatal crash at that intersection. Events spiraled out of Hannah’s control so quickly, she wasn’t even aware of them. As Hannah walked to the party earlier that night, she felt hopeful in the warm weather; now, the weather comforts her in a different way by letting her imagine fading into it. This is a major turning point in Hannah’s story: it’s the point at which she seems to decisively realize that she no longer wants to be a part of the world.
Themes
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