The elderly man is the driver who hits a high school senior’s car the night of the party thanks to the missing stop sign that Jenny knocked down only minutes earlier. His presence in the novel allows Clay’s compassion for others to shine: when Clay witnesses the crash, he takes it upon himself to run to the man’s house to tell his wife he’s okay. This, in turn, connects Hannah and Clay in an unexpected way: his house is the same house Hannah lived in when her family first moved to town, which makes Clay and Hannah’s connection feel more intense, perhaps even bound by fate, despite the fact that they only had one in-depth conversation.
The Elderly Man Quotes in Thirteen Reasons Why
The Thirteen Reasons Why quotes below are all either spoken by The Elderly Man or refer to The Elderly Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Cassette 5: Side A
Quotes
Two people—me and him—one house. Yet he drove away with no idea of his link to me, the girl on the sidewalk. And for some reason, at that moment, the air felt heavy. Filled with loneliness. And that loneliness stayed with me through the rest of the night.
Even the best moments of the night were affected by that one incident—by that nonincident—in front of my old house. His lack of interest in me was a reminder. Even though I had a history in that house, it didn’t matter. You can’t go back to how things were.
Related Characters:
Hannah Baker (speaker), The Elderly Man, Clay Jensen
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Elderly Man Character Timeline in Thirteen Reasons Why
The timeline below shows where the character The Elderly Man appears in Thirteen Reasons Why. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Cassette 1: Side B
...to tell the wife of the couple that now live here that her husband, an elderly man , had been involved in a car crash. The husband was safe, but he had...
(full context)
Cassette 5: Side A
...Clay remembers that night with anger: it was the night he had to leave an elderly man at the site of a car crash to tell the man’s wife that her husband...
(full context)
...garage door rises, and a man drives the car down the driveway. The driver (the elderly man who will later crash his car) has no idea of their link to each other,...
(full context)
On the tape, Hannah tells Clay that her loneliness at seeing the elderly man was one of the reasons she overreacted when she and Clay talked later in the...
(full context)
