Final Paper: Bullying in Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

            Thirteen Reasons Why is a novel about a girl named Hannah Baker who ended her own life after being bullied by her friends at school. She left 7 tape recordings with 13 different stories of why she killed herself. The side A of the first tape was for Justin Folley who apparently made up some nasty stories about their first kiss at the park. The second one was for Alex Standall who caused the snowball effect in this story. Had he not chosen her as the one who got ‘The Best Ass’ at school, the following occurences might have been prevented from happening. The next one was addressed to Jessica Davis who physically harmed her after she was placed in the “who’s not hot” column opposite to Hannah. The fourth one was for Tyler Down who violated Hannah’s personal space by stalking her at her own room at night to take candid pictures of her body. The next tape consists of 2 stories about Courtney Crimsen and Marcus Cooley. Courtney was being kind to her just to get people’s symphaty, whereas Hannah thought they were really friends, but it turned out Courtney was just using her. Meanwhile, Marcus was a douche who gives her hope by asking her number just to let her down. Not to mention that he sexually harrassed Hannah in public place. The next story was about Zach Dempsey who stole her paperbag of encouragement because he thought she didn’t deserve any praises. The opposite side of the tape was addressed to Ryan Shaver who shamelessly claimed Hannah’s poem as his and caused her to lose her interest in writing, whereas that was the only medium for her to express her feelings. The ninth story was about Clay Jensen, the narrator of the story. He was the only one whose story was told but didn’t belong to the “Reasons Why Hannah Killed Herself” category. Clay and Hannah developed some special feelings towards each other but they didn’t have a chance to confess their feelings so Hannah made a recording so Clay would understand her reasons. The last 4 stories were about Justin Folley, who witnessed a girl being raped by Bryce but didn’t do anything about it; Jenny Kurtz, who made her feel guilty after witnessing a car accident before her eyes because Jenny was too stubborn to listen to her; Bryce Walker, who raped her in a bathtub; and Mr. Porter, her counseling teacher, who could actually save her but chose to ignore her.
             I chose bullying as the topic of my research because some people still take bullying for granted. People think bullying is just one phase in your life from which you can learn to be mature and strong. Wrong. It is a big deal. Thirteen Reasons Why shows us that bullying can happen to anyone in any forms. Bullying is not always about getting beaten up or being ridiculed. Bullying can be in a form of “rumors or any attention to certain physical features that make a person feel insecure and threatened.”. Little did we know that nasty rumors can hurt people as badly as physical bullying. It actually might be more dangerous than the physical bullying because the wound can’t be seen. The victim bears the emotional pain by herself. Hannah, the main character in this novel, got bullied physically and mentally. Somehow it might seem like what happened to Hannah was not bullying, but according to the explanation above, bullying can be in any forms. Therefore, my paper will cover explanations about how the bullying is presented in the novel, how it affects Hannah’s mental state, and also how female sexual objectification is potrayed through sexual harrasment in this novel.

            Three journal articles will be used to help me understand the issue better.The first journal article is titled “Traces of Shame: Margaret Atwood's Portrayal of Childhood Bullying and its Consequences in Cat's Eye” by Bethan Jones. The second one is “A Study of Childhood Trauma and Childhood Bullying in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye” by Anna Lloyd. The last one is “Sexual Objectification: From Kant to Contemporary Feminism”  by Evangelina Papandaki.

How the Bullying is Potrayed

The first journal article provides explanations about how the bullying is presented in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye and how it affects the main character’s to the point she hurt herself to escape from the emotional pain she had to bear. The article shows that the physical and emotional bullying directed towards Elaine comes from the fact that she was different form her other friends, who mostly came from strongly dominant patriarchal families. She dressed and acted differently for her father gave her freedom to do and wear what she wanted. Thus, her supposed-to-be best friends forced her to change because they thought Elaine’s behaviour and appearance were not lady-like. The article explained how this act of phsychological bullying affected Elaine for the rest of her life. The writer shows that Elaine being outcasted for her ‘abnormality’ triggered her lack of confidence and insecurities. She became more self-conscious towards her own body because her friends’ kept throwing her judgemental comments. She then began to feel anxious about how she looked like to her friends.

Jones also mentioned something about self-image.

“...an acknowledgement of the process by which Cordelia's shortcomings were transferred to her, tainting her self-image.” (p.9)

The bullying was happened when she was only an elementary kid, but the effect of bullying remained there. She became more introvert and lost her confidence. The bullying caused her to think that she was not enough, that she had to change to be a better person, which then destroy her true self.

Jones also highlighted the self-harm issue in her article. Self-harm itself is actually Elaine’s way to take control of herself. She got pressured a lot that she felt lost. She thought she had to do something to make sure that she still had control over her own body. She chose self-harm as a way to escape from her internal pain. She tried to transform her unseen wound into something real by hurting her body so that she could take control of her own pain.

This article is useful to help me understand how the the bullying is potrayed and how it affects a person physically and psychologically. Hannah also got bullied for her appearance, although the situation is quite different from Elaine’s. I’d also like to show that bullying doesn’t always mean a person being directly harmed, either physically or psychologically. Being addressed as the girl who got the best ass in school made her feel insecure about her own body. She felt uncomfortable because people now see her from that specific part of her body. It is like her ass defines her as a person. She was not known as Hannah anymore, she was known as Hannah who got the best ass in school.

“Alex, because you’ll never know. It gives people—some people—the go-ahead to treat you like you’re nothing but that specific body part.” (p.24)

I also want to pinpoint the fact that bullying can happen to anyone. Hannah in this story was actually a pretty girl and once a social butterfly. Bullying doesn’t always happen to those who are physically unattractive or socially awkward like how it is known. This is related to the fact that bullying doesn’t always come in a form of mocking or physical abuse, because even compliment could be considered as bullying if it made someone feel uncomfortable,  just like what happened to Hannah. This is related to the self-image issue mentioned above. Her friends’ comment about her body gave her uneasy feeling of being watched, which is quite disturbing. She became more aware of her appearance. She was more careful not to wear something that would make her look curvy.

People who got bullied usually keep everything to themselves. They tend to be silent about what happened to them. No one knows what happened to Hannah until one day she decided to let everything out in a form of tape recordings and send them to her friends before she killed herself.

“And truthfully, I don’t know what they could have said to sway me either way. Because maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I was just looking for attention. Maybe I just wanted to hear people discuss me and my problems.” (p.92)

The victims of bullying, who are weaker than the bullies, are usually having low self-esteem, which means they couldn’t defend themselves because they didn’t believe that they could stand for themselves. The way people see them somehow affects the way they see themselves. Hannah gradually distanced herself from her friends and became a loner in the end because she thought people didn’t really care about her existance. People like Hannah are afraid of rejection, that’s why most of the them tend to keep the problems to themselves. Hannah stated it in her recordings that she needed someone to care for her, think of her problems and help her, but in reality, she never told anyone.

However, the way Elaine and Hannah coped with their problems is different. Elaine physically harmed herself to take control of her body. Hannah seeked comfort by writing poems. She poured her emotion and unspoken feelings into her writings. People who bear emotional pain tend to find a way to distract them from it. Elaine chose self-harm while Hannah used writing as a way to refresh her mind from the pressure she had to bear. They seek comfort from their escape. That’s the purpose of escaping after all, to stay away from reality for a while and create the ideal world for them to live in.

Ego Defense Mechanism

The second journal article gives explanations about childhood bullying and what triggers it. Lloyd provides an explanation about why Cordelia bullied Elaine. This has something to do with disorganized attachment pattern that happened to Cordelia. The lack of attention from family as the caregiver of the child is the main reason behind it. The child received maltreatment from his caregiver and the lack of affection he received caused him to act the same towards others. Lloyd also relates the act of bullying with ego-defenses, which are apparently used to avoid mental suffering by someone who is actually anxious about him/herself. The ego-defenses work “to reduce the anxiety so that someone can cope with her/his life.” (8). There are two types that are mentioned in the article, the first one is displacement which works as a way for people to express their disappointment or anger towards someone that is actually innocent. They put the blame on others so that they will feel better about themselves. By doing this, they can reduce the stress. The second one is called projection. Projection is a way for people to attribute their flaws to others. By projecting their flaws, they hope to get rid of uncomfortable feelings such as shame and guilt.

In Thirteen Reasons Why, the ego defense mechanism displacement can be seen in Jessica’s case. She was the one who was placed in a ‘who’s not hot’ column next to Hannah in Alex’s list.

“.....You didn’t hold me up for ridicule, did you? My name was in the Hot column. You wrote Jessica’s name in the Not column. You held Jessica up for ridicule. And that’s where our snowball picks up speed.” (p.28)

Hannah knew that Alex intentionally put her name in the ‘Hot’ column to piss Jessica off. His plan worked because not long after the list came out, Jessica cornered Hannah in an empty classroom. Hannah was also a victim and she had nothing to do with the list except for a fact that she was placed in a column opposite to where Jessica was. She put the blame on Hannah and physically abused her by scratching her face. She could not do anything to change the list or even got angry at the one who made it. Instead, she chose Hannah as the scapegoat and let everything out by hurting her. By doing so, she could get rid of her anger.

In Hannah’s case, ego defense mechanism works in a form of reaction formation and  sublimation. These 2 concepts were introduced by Anna Freud in her “The Ego and The Mechanisms of Defense”. According to her, reaction formation is a condition in which we “respond to some unacceptable trait by behaving in a way that would show them to have the opposite trait.” (5). Hannah thought being nice to them would change their perception of her. Therefore she tried not to show her discomfort and kept on being nice, even after she found out that Tyler stalked her every night to take pictures of her body. She knew she should never agree on going out with people like Marcus, but she did because she wanted to show people the good side of her.

“I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they’d heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors.(......).And if I wanted people to treat me that way, then I had to do the same for them, right?” (p.72)

Another type of defense mechanism presented in the novel is sublimation. Sublimation is a way in which we transform our anger, sadness, or any other uncomfortable feelings into something positive. Sublimation works when someone was mature enough to react positively towards something that is actually disturbing. Hannah wrote poems because she felt like she could express herself freely in her writing. She could write anything and there would be no one to judge her. She told her stories through her poem. She found the comfort she needed by writing poems. It is the only time where she could feel like herself again.

“....there is no better way to explore your emotions than with poetry.” (p.95)

Hannah’s writing was actually her escape from the cruel reality she was facing. Being bullied physically and psychologically and not being able to talk to someone and share her problems, Hannah tried to find a way to escape from reality to find comfort. Elaine in Cat’s Eye found comfort by physically hurt herself. Self-harm is also known as a way to let out the emotional pain. However, in this case, relating to the definition of sublimation, writing is considered more acceptable for we produce something positive from it.

Hannah as an Object of Men’s Sexual Desire

            The last journal article was written by Evangelina Papadaki. She argued that female sexual objectification is actually the side effect of men’s consumption towards pornography. The writer also said that being sexually objectified means our body is the only thing that will matter for men. Sexual objectification ignores a woman as a human being because “the desire which a man has for a woman is not directed towards her because she is a human being , but because she is a woman; that she is a human being is of no concern to the man; only her sex is the object of his desires” (4). In other words, women is valued by their body. Meanwhile, Kant (1963) argued that “...an individual's body and self are integrally bound together, in a way that the two cannot be separated.”, so basically it is unfair to treat a person as an object and ignore her as a self. What happened to Hannah is the perfect example for this matter. She belonged to the good category in Alex’s list but that thing actually offended her rather than flattered her. She became notorious for it and it made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that Jessica who belonged to the ‘not hot’ category was extremely pissed with the list. The act of categorizing women according to their looks and bodies is a proof that women are sexually objectified by men. Because their value is decided by how much they can attract men.

Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) coined the term objectification theory which states that “it is a given that today “women exist in a culture in which their bodies are looked at, evaluated, and always potentially objectified;””, meaning women’s bodies are more important than either their brain or personality. Female sexual objectification allows men to do anything they want to women because women are the object to satisfy men’s needs, they are “something that can be used” (Herman, 1993).

What happened to Hannah, her being sexually objectified with Alex’s list; her being stalked by Tyler who seemed so obsessed with her body; her being sexually harrassed in public by Marcus; her being raped by Bryce, are examples how women are treated as object to satisfy men’s sexual desire. She was the target because the list said she was the most physically attractive among other girls in her school. Thus, all her male friends chase after her body.

“Here’s a tip. If you touch a girl, even as a joke, and she pushes you off, leave…her…alone. Don’t touch her. Anywhere! Just stop. Your touch does nothing but sicken her.” (P.28)

In one of her recordings, which was directed towards Alex who happened to suddenly grab her butts in front of a lot of strangers, Hannah explained how everything that happened to her was triggered by a list, a list which categorized women based on their butts. She also expressed her disappointment because Jessica, her supposed-to-be best friends thought the list was very important that she had to hurt Hannah for beating her in looks department. Ironically, she subjectified herself as “a thing that satisfy men’s appetite” (Kant, 1963).

            The journal articles help me a lot in analyzing the bullying issue in this novel; how a rumor can hurt someone as much as physical abuse, how an act of bullying can be considered as a way for someone to avoid mental suffering, how the victims of bullying cope with their internal pain by escaping the reality and create their own ideal condition in which they can fully control themselves, and also how the list, which triggered the whole mess, is actually a form of female sexual objectification. In conclusion, bullying can happen to anyone in any possible forms. The act which can make someone feel offended or threatened, although it is in a form of compliment, can also be considered as bullying.

Works Cited:

Asher, Jay. (2007). Thirteen Reasons Why. New Yoork: Penguin Young Readers Book.

Baumeister, Roy F., Dale, Karen, and Sommer, Kristin L. (1998). Freudian Defense Mechanisms and Empirical Findings in Modern Social Psychology: Reaction Formation, Projection, Displacement, Undoing, Isolation, Sublimation, and Denial. Case Western University. Retrieved from http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/burke_b/personality/readings/freuddefense.pdf

Jones, B. (2008). Traces of Shame: Margaret Atwood's Portrayal of Childhood Bullying and Its Consequences in Cat's Eye. Critical Survey, 20(1), 29-42,102. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205842533?accountid=48290

Lloyd, Anna. (2012).  A Study of Childhood Trauma and Bullying in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye. Lund University Publication. Retrieved from

http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=4254688&fileOId=4254694

Papadaki, Evangelina. (2007). Sexual Objectification: From Kant to Contemporary Feminism. Contemporary Political Theory, 6(3), 330-348. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/237023521?accountid=48290