After The First Death

On the surface, Ben’s heartbreak while children were abducted feels selfish. Teenage heartbreak will likely mend, but the loss of life cannot be reversed. Ben’s focus on his emotions, though, is natural. For him, the heartbreak is immediate and real. It causes him pain in the moment and feels worse than a hijacking that’s happening somewhere else to someone else. Ben puts emphasis on the situation that affects him more because it is worse for him. Even if Kate knew about Ben’s heartbreak, the bus incident is a more immediate threat, and she would focus on it, rather than Ben’s sorrow. Cormier suggests we prioritize pain based on how it affects us, and he considers the importance of perspective.

In Part 3, we see Ben break the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader. Breaking the fourth wall is a term from theater that refers to actors talking to the audience. Cormier wrote Ben’s section almost as journal entries with a more conversational, stream-of-consciousness style. In addition to suggesting Ben experiences lingering trauma from the bus incident, Ben’s ongoing references to people who are watching him imply he may be hallucinating the presence of onlookers or be overly concerned with how other perceive him. Cormier may have written Ben’s passages this way to show the effects of trauma on the human brain. He may have also intended to set Ben up as an unreliable narrator to increase suspense.