Novel vs. TV Portrayal of Thirteen Reasons Why

By -
Thirteen Reasons Why is the story of Clay Jensen, who is one of the final recipients of a set of tapes made by a classmate who committed suicide, Hannah Baker. Throughout the day or so time it takes Clay to listen to all of the tapes, he finds out new tidbits and events that happened to Hannah during her time at their high school, which ultimately led to her demise. This was my second time reading this book, and this time I skimmed (because not only have I read the book, but I've also seen both seasons of the Netflix adaption of the book, and this time I read with the differences between cinematic version versus original copy in mind. The biggest, and most criticized difference between the book and the show is the way Hannah kills herself, where the text says she "took a handful of sleeping pills" () but the last scene in the Netflix series shows Hannah slicing open her arm. I would assume that when Jay Asher wrote the novel back in the early 2000s that suicide wasn't performed often by mutilation, but in today's society, that is one of the most prominent ways. By writing for Hannah to kill herself via self-harm in the show, I feel like it really set the tone for victims of suicide everywhere by showing the effects of not only the victim, but the loved ones of the victim as well. There are other small differences as well, like the relationship between Hannah's parents in the book versus the series, the characters' language use in the series, and Clay's status at their high school, but I feel like those were all adapted and modified to fit into today's societal viewing party, whereas most of these issues wouldn't be considered jaw-dropping issues back in the early 2000's.

When reading this a book a second time, I also looked deeper into the English teacher, Mr.Porter's, role in Hannah's demise. In the show, he is a guidance counselor, who not only completely ignores Hannah's comment of no longer wanting to live, but lacks any kind of sympathy that a person of that status should have at least a little bit of. He also did not follow any type of educator protocol, which wasn't a rule back when the book was written, but in today's school, any kind of sexual abuse or assault committed by or to a student is to be reported immediately. Mr. Porter didn't even call Hannah's parents to tell her what she was saying during their meeting time, which should have been a huge red flag for readers.

Because I plan to teach middle schoolers, I would not dare touch this book. I say that mainly because of the content, but I'm sure by the time I begin teaching, a new season will have been released and the majority of my students will at least know what the show pertains to. However, if I were teaching high school, I would definitely try to incorporate this book into maybe a Lit Circle group or during a unit on poetry or digital media or dialogue. It would be a lot easier to swing this text into a high school classroom than a middle school classroom.

I still will always be a fan of this book (and the series) because it is something that needs to be constantly talked about instead of hidden away in the shadows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more