The cassette is almost 30 years old and has been replaced by iPods and CDs. However, in 13 Reasons Why, 17-year-old Hannah Baker uses cassette tapes to reveal the reasons of her suicide. After her death, Hannah sends the tapes to the 13 people who are the reasons so they can hear her story. As you get farther and farther into the book and you “hear” all of her reasons, you can start to see a deeper message. Hannah highlights three hidden messages in her tapes.
She states that the smallest things can make the biggest differences, that people can be judged by the things that others don’t see, and that people don’t care enough to pay attention to anyone but themselves. Many things in Hannah’s tapes are very small. An example would be her not getting any “put up” notes or complements in her box on Valentine’s Day. Hannah also directly asked for help from her teacher but the teacher never acknowledged her. Not saying “hello,” to someone could be the difference between a good day and a bad day.
A smile or a wave could completely change someone’s outlook on the day. Another reason Hannah shows is that people judge others without knowing the whole story. There is one incident in the book where Hannah goes off somewhere with her best guy friend. The next day at school, Hannah was made fun of because everyone thought “something happened” when it didn’t. Hannah was made fun of and embarrassed about something she didn’t even do. I’ve seen this happen to people in our school A boy was made fun of because he wore the same shirt twice to school.
His parents can’t afford to buy him a whole new closet of clothes like everyone else. Everyone thought he was gross and dirty when he wasn’t. People judge and make assumptions before they know the whole story. Hannah’s last point showed that people don’t care enough to pay attention to anyone but themselves. Hannah missed three days of school and her best friend didn’t even call her. Hannah directly asked one of her teachers for help, but the teacher was too wrapped up in her own life to give her any.
People usually don’t notice anything but themselves. I’ve seen this too. A girl on the volleyball team was judged because she was overweight. Nobody noticed that she was at every single summer workout. She was there working with everyone else but still people judged and made fun of her. Hannah’s story is very moving, and it really opened my eyes. It’s made me look closer at people: about how they act, what they do and what they are feeling. I would bet barely anyone noticed the man that does push ups at the football games, alking to the stadium two hours early and that every time the football team did something good, he would write it down in his notebook. People still think he’s a weird and gross old man because they don’t know the whole story. Saying “hello” to someone could completely turn their day around. This story has really changed the way I think and I am grateful for that. It’s made me do small things that make people happy, made me pay attention to little details, and I think it’s made me a better person.
