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Summary
Themes
and Colors
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
Clay hands a package to the post office clerk. She asks him how quickly he wants it to arrive at its destination; he says it doesn’t matter. The package is a shoebox wrapped in brown paper, now addressed to “the next name on Hannah Baker’s list.” Clay pays for the postage, but the clerk tells him he’s missing a dollar. He rubs his eyes and gulps his gas station coffee.
The novel starts with the mystery of what’s in the package Clay has just dropped off. From Clay’s behavior, it’s clear he’s exhausted, and the reader wonders whether his exhaustion has something to do with “Hannah Baker’s list,” and whatever she wants the people on it to receive. And that leads to the biggest question of all: Who is Hannah Baker?
Active
Themes
The clerk tells Clay the package will arrive in a day or two. He imagines Jenny, the recipient, seeing the package on her doorstep and getting excited—just like he was when he received it. The clerk offers Clay the receipt. He refuses it, wondering if the people before him on the list kept their receipts as “sick souvenirs.” He never wants to hear the tapes from the package again, though he knows the voice on them will haunt him forever.
It becomes clear that the package contains something secret and sinister—something Clay never wanted to know about. The reader here discovers that the package contains a set of taped voice recordings, and that the tapes apparently reveal life-changing information.
Active
Themes
Clay walks to school, his head aching. He feels on the verge of collapse. He wants to drag himself into the ivy next to the sidewalk instead of heading into the school building, through the front doors and lockers and into the classroom where he’ll see Hannah Baker’s empty desk and the desk of Mr. Porter, who will be the last to receive the package of tapes.
Active
Themes
