Were Brent’s Suicidal Actions and Lea’s Death Just Fate?
In Chapter 3, while Brent was talking with Lea’s parents, Mrs. Zamora says this: “‘I also believe everything happens for a reason.’ She toyed with her necklaces. ‘That the universe required this. For some reason.’” (pg. 41) Once I saw this, I started thinking more deeply about how the car incident caused a huge chain of events, and whether or not it was destined to happen, like Mrs. Zamora saw it. Was Lea’s death required to allow Brent’s character to change and give him a newfound view at the world on a spiritual level? How would Brent be as a person had he not had the opportunity to build the whirligigs, and, in addition, how would he react, had he seen a whirligig in a public place like a park? Would this affect the side characters’ lives, too? (Meaning Flaco, Tony, Grandma and Steph.) If Brent had not attempted to kill himself, he’d probably remain a self-obsessed teenager, yet more insecure than before. Brent being so close to death, being responsible for a death, and coming to terms with the fact that there are more important things than his image and getting into the “elite” consequently made him a more observant and thankful person. Without this clarity, he would probably remain who he …show more content…
He’d probably just look at it as a useless toy, not a symbol for hope in hard times. You have to have gone through certain things to understand what a whirligig would really mean right away. Making the whirligig is a completely different thing than seeing it. Even the first whirligig Brent made didn’t have nearly as much thought as when he ditched the whirligig book. If he had come across it even before the incident at the party, he would probably just make fun of it, to make him look “mature,” and look cooler in his mind, even though his “alternate reality” character would feel hopeful and
In Chapter 3, while Brent was talking with Lea’s parents, Mrs. Zamora says this: “‘I also believe everything happens for a reason.’ She toyed with her necklaces. ‘That the universe required this. For some reason.’” (pg. 41) Once I saw this, I started thinking more deeply about how the car incident caused a huge chain of events, and whether or not it was destined to happen, like Mrs. Zamora saw it. Was Lea’s death required to allow Brent’s character to change and give him a newfound view at the world on a spiritual level? How would Brent be as a person had he not had the opportunity to build the whirligigs, and, in addition, how would he react, had he seen a whirligig in a public place like a park? Would this affect the side characters’ lives, too? (Meaning Flaco, Tony, Grandma and Steph.) If Brent had not attempted to kill himself, he’d probably remain a self-obsessed teenager, yet more insecure than before. Brent being so close to death, being responsible for a death, and coming to terms with the fact that there are more important things than his image and getting into the “elite” consequently made him a more observant and thankful person. Without this clarity, he would probably remain who he …show more content…
He’d probably just look at it as a useless toy, not a symbol for hope in hard times. You have to have gone through certain things to understand what a whirligig would really mean right away. Making the whirligig is a completely different thing than seeing it. Even the first whirligig Brent made didn’t have nearly as much thought as when he ditched the whirligig book. If he had come across it even before the incident at the party, he would probably just make fun of it, to make him look “mature,” and look cooler in his mind, even though his “alternate reality” character would feel hopeful and