Do you think Samantha is relatable?
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Re: Do you think Samantha is relatable?
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You bring up a very good point, Scott! My first reaction was 'I am not like Sam, at all, and therefore found her not relatable.' However, after reading your comments, I would say she probably represents a lot of people at varying ages. I can remember doing something that I knew was wrong in high school, but because others were doing it, I followed along. It wasn't bullying, it was more of a stupid decision. But, I fell in the trap of following instead of saying 'this is wrong, we shouldn't do it'.Scott wrote:I worry if Sam might be intentionally hard to relate to because she herself didn't consider her own cruelty-by-following at first either. It's easy to say we wouldn't be like Sam when we use the power of looking at it from an outsider's perspective. But what about when we are on the inside, and the cruelty or following is not condemned by those around us but encouraged? What about when on the inside we are told what we are doing is "good" even though from the outside it looks like what many would "bad" or cruel?
History itself is filled with examples, the most cliche and overused being a certain time in German history. How could the majority of people go along with that? Not just allow it to happen but actively support it? I would never do that, we think.
Are we not capable of cruelty as long as its socially acceptable or encouraged?
Even today, what about the child slaves who make our shoes? What about the factory farmed animals we purchase? In a recent poll, a large percentage of people supported the bombing of Agrabah. Agrabah is not a real city. It's the fictional city from the movie Aladdin. If it was real city filled with real people, how quickly would us--full-grown adults--follow someone else's lead in delivering cruelty to those people because their city has a funny name? How different is that really than high school bullying? The people we call the "bad guys" even historically speaking didn't think of themselves as "bad guys" and would themselves probably say that they can't relate to "bad guys" or "bully's".
One thing I really like about this book, Before I Fall, is the very fact that the question of whether Samantha is relatable does not have an easy answer. We want to say no, but I think saying no itself is one big way the answer might actually be more of a yes.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
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You weren't the only one. I liked Sam right from the start and could relate to both the mean girl and the changed, more enlightened version of her. Not that I was a bully, but I do have a very dark and sarcastic sense of humour and love teasing people. Hopefully, I can now tell when a joke is appropriate and can't be constructed as being mean.katiesquilts wrote:I think I may be one of the few readers who related to her from the start! I never bullied people outright, but I do have a mean sense of humor. Thankfully I've learned when it's appropriate to tease people and when I should just keep my mouth shut for want of making things worse, but my teases were never exactly the "gentle" kind. I was bullied myself in elementary and middle school, but not so much when I moved schools. The friends I made there were involved in lots of school activities, which is almost the same as being popular because people at least know you and have an opinion of you. I stuck myself to one girl who lived down the block from me, and she literally guided me through the rest of my high school years. I had more genuine friends in other classes, but she was so much more available and pushy than my other friends that I ended up in her gravitational pull anyways. Kind of like Samantha and Lindsay. In fact, in the very first chapter Samantha thinks something along the lines of, "I'm just a follower," and that's what I related to the most, because you enter a group and you share all the inside jokes and you gossip, but you're always just a little behind everyone else to see how they act and what reactions to imitate.
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