Nineteen Minutes
by Jodi Picoult
What leads a tender-hearted juvenile to the road of
slaughter? Desperation.
Peter and Josie were once close friends. As
time went by, they separated apart. Peter suffers severe bullying in school
while Josie tries hard to merge into those bullies to make herself popular in
school. Mourning over Peter’s dead brother who was a straight A student
and athlete, Peter’s parents spend little time on their remaining son, which
makes Peter isolated not from school, but also from family. One ordinary day,
the accumulated burden caused by bullying, humiliation and violence disables
Peter from enduring. Peter pulls the trigger, taking his revenge on everyone in
campus with nineteen minutes.
The first time I heard about the story of nineteen minutes, I was
strongly convinced that the shooter must have possessed a cold-blooded heart.
The death penalty would be the only appropriate solution to his murder.
However, I turned out to be sympathetic over his life after reading. I
even inwardly imagined he could be acquitted of all the charges and moved on
with his new life in the end of the story. Jodi Picoult is an undoubtedly
inspiring story-teller. She knows what the readers look for from her story and
she meets their expectations. She also casts out questions about moral issues
and humanity flaws, which allows people to reflect on themselves and also
the society.
The first disputable issue that hits me is how to define “evil.” When
people commit a crime, we consider them villains. When good people commit a
crime, doubts arise. Deliberately shooting people to death seems to be an evil
deed, but after knowing how much Peter has suffered, can we conclude that Peter
is evil? Those smart and athletic cool kids win honor for school but embarrass
other slow students for fun. Can we judge they are evil? Josie, once peter’s
best friend, humiliates Peter in order to merge into the cool kids. She
traumatizes Peter the most, but she keeps feeling guilty for what she has done.
How can we define her and the parents, teachers, and anyone who neglect the
victims’ crying for help and unintentionally assist with bullying? Evil is
never born, but made. Goodness exists in people’s nature. Once attacked by
extreme force, it gets twisted, then producing evilness. Evil could not only be
an instant thought, but also be expanded to devour the man’s original nature.
Peter was previously a gentle kid, who would never be the ingredient for a
murderer. “Everyone’s saying I ruined their lives but no one seemed to care
when my life was being ruined.” The explosive desperation toward life
ultimately twists Peter into a monster with eyes glued to revenge. The pursuit
of peel acceptance devours the original nature Josie used to have and twists
her into a traitor to real friends. Overdosed vanity and pride twists kids into
devils without empathy. Selfishness and reluctance to face the reality creates
the indifferent world.
The society encourages people to
bravely express their uniqueness, but once refused, people put on camouflage to
hide who they truly are, and to better fit into the world. Peter’s softness
does not cater to worldly expectation of being a man, and therefore he chooses
not to reveal himself, laying low, being invisible in order to escape away from
peel’s denial. Josie’s kindness does not qualify her for being a member of the
cool kids, so she veils herself with abandoning Peter when he seeks help. The
society has been so deformed that one’s merit turns out to be a demerit.
Fearing for being excluded, people have to coat themselves with camouflage to
survive this cruel and merciless world. Sarcastically, the education has been
preaching people to retain the true colors of themselves but forgot to light
directions to the outsiders who are constantly told “NO” by others in their
environments, by bullies on campus, by parents at home. How to strike a balance
between staying in the nature and fitting in the society still leaves
uncertainty
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. － Confucius
When the desperation drags Peter down to the
bottom, he drowns himself in the attempts at revenge. Serving as a hypnotizer,
revenge entitles Peter strength and confidence to overthrow the current
society. The power revenge gives off is so devastating that Peter can transform
himself into an aggressive, cynical bomber, that the bullies who used to tease
on Peter taste the horror of desperation for the first time, and that all the
people who always ignored Peter eventually pay attention to him. The effects
revenge brings are simultaneously enormous that it rings the warning bell to
the world, that Peter ultimately proves his self-existence to the world, and
that Peter becomes the person that everyone wants to be, a person who cannot be
judged by the world. However, the Author, Jodi Picoult, does not advocate
revenge but tries to hold back this attempt. Retaliation serves as a two-sided
sword. It stabs the enemy deeply, and cuts the holder back even deeper. Peter
wins temporary satisfaction in nineteen minutes, but the vacancy remains
forever. He never has a chance to breathe the air of freedom ever again. He
will never see whether there would be a turning point in his life where
outsiders are welcome, or a place like Utopia where loneliness can be erased
with acceptance. He can never discover all the potential possibilities in life,
either.
All hatred leads to dead ends; all revenge ends in tragedy. If Peter had
not sowed the seed of spite in his heart, he might have still encountered the
same difficulties but faced them with positive attitudes. If Peter did not pull
the trigger, he may still suffer depressing challenges, but life would be worth
anticipating.
I have been enlightened throughout savoring
every written word in Nineteen Minutes. People and the society are
inseparable. The society molds personality; personality creates the society.
Contrariwise, the society suppresses personality; personality explodes it. Jodi
Picoult never sets a standardized answer to the above issues. She leaves space
for us to reflect on ourselves, refit the society and renew the world.
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