The Crash

The Crash’s main plot arc revolves around Tegan’s captivity as part of Polly’s scheme to take her baby, but the narrative is framed by another crime: the depictions of Hank killing Mitch that feature in the Prologue and Epilogue. Both Polly and Hank justify their actions and reduce their feelings of guilt through rationalization, a defense mechanism that involves the denial or distortion of reality to avoid emotional discomfort. The juxtaposition of Hank’s rationalizations with Polly’s further emphasizes the novel’s message beyond what an analysis of only Polly’s would suggest, complicating the interpretation of these rationalizations to go beyond a simplistic idea of whether they are right or wrong to suggest that motivation plays a pivotal role.

Polly’s rationalizations for holding Tegan captive and planning to take her baby fuel the plot of the novel, but they are formed around Polly’s desire for a baby. Based on very little information and no real evidence, Polly decides that Tegan doesn’t want her baby and will be a terrible mother. She takes the presence of a flask and lighter in Tegan’s purse to mean that she drinks and smokes while pregnant and her request for pain medication to mean that she is using drugs. Polly uses her assumptions to convince herself that stealing Tegan’s baby will benefit everyone because this is what she wants to believe. Further, she hopes that Tegan will confirm her assumptions by admitting that she doesn’t want to be a parent, and even though Tegan never does, Polly considers them confirmed anyway: “I can see in her eyes that it’s the truth. But she’s stubborn and obviously refusing to admit the truth” (202). Polly also rationalizes her decision by interpreting her mother’s words, “Don’t worry, Polly […] Someday, your family will be complete” (127), from a new perspective. She turns her mother’s message into a sign that she’s meant to have Tegan’s baby. Polly takes these rationalizations to a new and dangerous level later when she convinces herself that “the ends justify the means” and that killing Tegan won’t hurt anyone because Tegan said that nobody would miss her (256). All of Polly’s justifications for her crimes—both ongoing and planned—are unfounded and based purely on self-interest.

Although Hank’s crime isn’t revealed until the very end of the novel, his thoughts about it show that he, too, is building a rationalization to justify his crime. In the Prologue, Hank notes that he killed Mitch “for a good reason” and says that it was “the only way” (8). On a surface level, these claims seem to echo Polly’s beliefs about the rightness of her justifications; however, a few things set the two examples apart. Hank’s assessment that Mitch is both negligent and abusive toward Sadie is based on observation rather than a desire for it to be true. Sadie demonstrates a lack of basic hygiene and reports going days without food, and while it’s possible that Mitch didn’t cause the bruises on Sadie’s face, his belligerence and near physical abuse of Polly provide sufficient evidence for Hank to make the connection. In addition, Mitch refuses to let Polly and Hank help Sadie, and Child Protective Services has done nothing to help, contributing to Hank’s belief that this is his only remaining option. Hank’s rationalizations for his crime differ from Polly’s in several meaningful ways, but most importantly, they are based on evidence instead of a desire for a specific end, as Polly’s are. With these two different examples, the novel doesn’t offer conclusions about whether Hank’s actions are right or wrong but instead illuminates meaningful distinctions in the ways people rationalize acts that defy laws or social values, arguing that motive plays a pivotal role in the ethics of rationalization.