According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, “Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24-year-olds.” Unfortunately, suicide is a real life problem that teens face often. The book Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher explores the serious topic of suicide using symbolism. He uses Eisenhower Park to symbolize innocence throughout the book. Including the symbol, the book’s overall theme is little things have a large impact. “All my friends back home had their first kisses in middle school. Mine was waiting for me at the bottom of a slide, exactly as I wanted it” (28). This quote is important because it is Hannah describing her first kiss. She talks about Justin Foley catching her at the bottom of the slide and kissing her. That is all that happened. However, rumors around the school said otherwise. After Hannah and Justin kissed, Hannah got a “bad” reputation. This small incident caused people to look at her differently, and that hurt her. It made her feel guilty, even though the rumors were not true. …show more content…
It reminded me of innocence. And I wanted my first kiss to be just that. Innocent” (25). At this point in the book, Hannah is having dreams about kissing her freshman crush, Justin Foley, at Eisenhower Park. As you can tell from the quote, Hannah values her innocence. She wanted her first kiss to be innocent and nothing more. Unfortunately, that’s not how it turned out. The park was the first place where she felt she lost a part of her innocence. It was just a little thing, but it mattered to her. Soon these small incidents where too much for her to handle. She used to look to the park for comfort, but now it was a reminder of a painful