Andy Jackson's 'Tears Of A Tiger'

Tears of a Tiger The novel “Tears of a Tiger” tells a story about a close group of friends who end up suffering from an ill fate. The main character, Andy Jackson, and his friends decided to celebrate after a big win in their school basketball game, they acquired alcohol and drove around in Andy’s car while intoxicated. While Andy was driving drunk, he caused a fatal car accident that killed his best friend Robbie Washington who was riding in the front passenger seat. The other three passengers survived physically, but Andy went down into a spiralling depression. He later killed himself because of his guilt and depression. After Andy’s death, Andy’s school enlisted a grief council program among his classmates. The grief counselors advised
Andy’s friends to write letters to the deceased Andy to make themselves feel better. Suicide was the wrong choice for Andy, some of his closest friends Gerald, Rhonda and Tyrone demonstrated that Andy’s suicide was an ill choice and that life is always better than death. Andy’s fellow basketball team member Gerald agreed that Andy had made the wrong choice because he thought Andy ending his own life was cowardly.
Gerald demonstrated this view in a very angry way when he was writing a letter to the deceased Andy. “Brave men face their problems. So what does that make you?” (Draper 173). In the letter Gerald was obviously very angry at Andy for ending his own life and thus causing him more pain. Gerald implied that Andy was a coward for ending his life instead of facing his problems by erasing the pain and guilt. In other words Gerald is saying that the better choice for Andy was to live and eventually overcome his depression in guilt. Gerald disagrees with Andy’s choice and he expresses it by showing anger towards him. Gerald compared Andy’s pain to his own by explaining how courageously he puts up with his stepfather's abuse, and how if he could put up with that kind of pain, Andy could also withstand his own pain,
too. Rhonda very much disagreed on Andy’s choice of killing himself. She disagrees because his death caused a terrible amount of pain. In her letter to Andy she explains the consequences to his actions. “What were you thinking while sitting in your bedroom with that shotgun? Who did you think would find you?... How about your little brother. Monty? He’s six years old.” (Draper 174). Because of his actions, everyone that cared for Andy is in pain. Especially Monty because he has to live without his older brother guiding him; Monty is essentially scarred for life. Rhonda implies that life is always better than death because his death had caused so much pain in other people’s lives and might have even ruined a few lives like Monty’s or his Mom’s. Tyrone says that the best choice was to continue living.
Death doesn’t solve anything and it makes everything worse because now everyone has a great deal of grief. Tyrone says life is better than death because Andy had a chance to move on and live a great life later on. “Hey man, life ain’t perfect, but it’s life! Remember when we realized we wasn’t going to die? In spite of all that noise and fire and death we looked at eachother, and real quick like, we smiled... Cause we’re alive.” (Draper 171). Tyrone clearly explains how life is always better than taking your own life. Tyrone is also saying that Andy just should have been thankful and happy he survived. He has a reason to live because he survived. Tyrone is saying that Andy shouldn’t have killed himself because he had so much to live for, and that there are so many possibilities in life. Andy should have just been happy to be
alive. Some of the consequences of Andy killing himself were that he had caused an incredible amount of pain to people that cared about him. Andy could have gotten help and worked out his problem of depression. Time most probably would of healed Andy’s wound. Gerald, Rhonda and Tyrone agree that living life is always a better choice than death.