Tragedy

Authors note:

This is an essay I wrote about the cause and affect people have around Laurel in the book The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle.

"I quickly imagined that I could reach my hand into my chest, yank out that awful feeling, place it on an invisible cloud of air in front of me, then push it away. Push it away (Castle, 2011). " This is how Laurel feels after the death of her mom, dad, and brother when she knows that she has a lot of dark days in her future that she will need to deal with, and David Kaufman is not making it any easier for her. When anyone in the world dies it is obvious that the effect will be tragic, but In the book The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle the true effect was in what David did as he coped with a tragedy of his own and how it effects Laurel on her journey to rediscover herself in the real world. 

When laurel went to a prom after party with her lifelong friend and date, Joe, David caused it to turn bad and this effected Laurel in a negative way. It started going downhill when David came in and yelled at her, just making her feel worse and worse until she didn't want to face anyone in the world again, not even her own best friend.  Laurel hit her last straw moment when David came in and shouted “You’re an orphan” right to her face. The party and the night had been going great, just for one night Laurel had forgotten about all the bad stuff that had happened to her. Leading up to that night Laurel was starting to find her place in the world again but after she was humiliated in front of everyone Laurel just went back into the cycle of “What if” thoughts of how her life turned out. “What if I would have went in the car with them”, “What if David didn't show up at the after party” ,“What if none of this happened”, what if this, what if that, what ifs consumed her whole world until she didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning.

Although messing with your mind can be confusing, it is even worse when your mind and your heart are confused  All throughout the book Joe has been there for her even if she didn't see it until the end. She starts to notice him and takes advantage of the smart guy that has been there for her the whole time, she starts to have feelings for him, but a curve ball gets thrown into her love life when she is on a walk with David and they kiss! David came over one night and they decided to go for a walk with his dog Masher to a cave they used to visit in the summer together. After a long serious talk on the way back there was just an awkward moment of silence before they kissed. Laurel didn't know what to do because she now had equal feelings for both guys. She didn't know what to do because she was trapped in the middle. The effect that this had on Laurel was that her heart was pulled in many directions. Her mind knew that David was a bad kind of boy, he was the kind of boy who came and went as he pleased never really being there as a solid rock but after that kiss Laurels heart was to him even though her mind knew he was bad. Her heart was pulled in two different direction not knowing which way to go, leaving Laurel in a world full of uncertainty and confusion.

In this essay about the book The Beginning Of After by Jennifer Castle I list only two of the way that David made Laurel’s life way more complex but there are many more. If a little girl took a toy away from a little boy and the boy started screaming, people would think the boy is disrupting the girl from playing with the toy when really it is the other way around. This is one way to show that sometimes the root of the problem is not what it seems. In the same way if someone loses a family member or multiple family members everyone tries to comfort them about their loss but really it’s the people that are still alive that are making it hard for them to move on with their life.

Bibliography

Castle, J. (2011). The Beginning Of After. In J. Castle, The Beginning Of After (p. 35). New York: HarperCollins Publishers.