All The Bright Places Summary and Theme
Niven tells the story from two different voices, those of
high school students Theodore Finch (who goes by “Finch”) and Violet Markey. The
characters initially meet at the highest point of their secondary school ringer
tower, where both are pondering self destruction. Finch, splendid, shunned by a
large portion of his friends, mishandled by his dad, and experiencing untreated
bipolar problem, has battled self-destructive motivations for a long time.
Violet, previously an advanced team promoter, honor understudy, and overall
around model teen, is experiencing survivor's responsibility following the
auto-related passing of her sister, Eleanor, the earlier year. Utilizing
delicate, restorative language, Finch talks Violet off the edge. Thus, Violet
does likewise for Finch. In any case, given Finch's deep rooted hardships, everybody
expects that Violet climbed the pinnacle to save him, and he doesn't scatter
this presumption.
The two characters structure a far-fetched organization and
set out upon a visit through sights in their home province of Indiana to
satisfy the course necessities of their US geology class. During this time,
they become companions and afterward darlings. Finch assists Violet with
conquering her injury and urges her to reconnect with life. At the point when
Finch's temperament shifts from lunacy to despondency, Violet endeavors to help
him; in any case, Finch feels that he is a lot cause and eventually commits
suicide.
In a self-portraying postscript, that's what niven uncovers
"a kid I knew and cherished" (379) committed suicide quite a while
preceding the distribution of this book. Niven examines the disgrace that
encompasses self destruction, the effect of the misfortune upon survivors, and
the variety of treatment and backing accessible to help people enduring with
dysfunctional behavior. She additionally portrays the results of untreated
dysfunctional behavior and the powerlessness of numerous grown-ups to perceive
indications of high school suicidality — including the effect of harassing.
The story of The relative multitude of Brilliant Places
especially grants a feeling of expectation and acknowledgment for survivors who
have lost friends and family to self destruction — and stresses the
significance of suitable help and directing for these casualties too. Violet,
injured by the twin misfortunes of her kin and beau, regardless looks ideally
to her future toward the finish of the book.
The book opens with one of the two storytellers, Theodore
Finch, reflecting upon the various events and conditions when he has asked
himself, "Is today a decent day to kick the bucket?" (3). He is
remaining on the tight edge of a chime tower on the grounds of his secondary
school, feeling "deader than expected" (4), and has no memory of the
few going before weeks. He yells a solicitation to understudies processing
underneath to observe his demise, however he draws in no consideration.
Finch unexpectedly understands that another understudy, the
wonderful, famous Violet Markey, is likewise ready to jump from one more
segment of the slope. He quiets her by teaching her to move back over the
railing to somewhere safe. He utilizes grim humor, taking note of that he
doesn't believe it should create the impression that "I've been gone
through the tree shredder at my burial service" and advances to her (7).
Finch likewise yells to the group that Violet's motivation for climbing the
pinnacle was to save him from self destruction. Subsequent to guaranteeing her
security, Finch considers jumping from the level once more; nonetheless, Violet
responds by conversing with him until he yields. Charlie Donahue, Finch's
closest companion, who nonchalantly specifies that pizza is being served in the
cafeteria, goes along with them.
Along these lines, Finch meets with his school advocate, Mr.
Embry (also known as "Mr. Undeveloped organism"), who questions
whether he is self-destructive, takes steps to call Finch's mom, and plans two
times week by week gatherings. Finch doesn't voice his new contemplations of a
"long, dull rest where you don't dream by any stretch of the
imagination" compared with his desired idea to remain alive (16).
All The Bright Places Character Analysis
THEODORE FINCH
Theodore Finch, an Indiana native, is a brilliant, witty,
artistic 17-year-old high school student; he is one of the two teenage
narrators of the story. He resides with his mother, a kind-hearted but
overwhelmed, depressed, and ineffective single parent; his 18-year-old sister,
Kate; and his eight-year-old sister, Decca. His father, a retired hockey player
who recently divorced his wife to marry a younger woman, has always been
physically and emotionally abusive to Finch.
Finch and the book’s other narrator, Violet Markey,
eventually become a couple. Finch assists Violet in overcoming the emotional
trauma stemming from the loss of her older sister. Despite heroic efforts to
avoid falling “asleep,” he succumbs to depression from untreated bipolar disorder
and commits suicide by drowning himself in the Blue Hole, an allegedly
bottomless lake. This character functions as a cautionary tale regarding untreated
mental illness and the inability of others to recognize signs of teenage
suicidality.
VIOLET MARKEY
Violet Markey experiences trauma from the death of her older
sister, Eleanor, in a car accident. Violet is a bright, skilled writer who has
lost interest in many of her former activities and friends. Her devoted and
well-meaning parents enrage her by failing to express their grief at Eleanor’s
death. Violet experiences survivor’s guilt: She was in the car with Eleanor
when it crashed; she is also anguished by the fact that she directed Eleanor to
drive home via a bridge that iced over on the night of the accident.
All The Bright Places Summary and Theme
Finch assists Violet in finding productive ways of overcoming
her anger and expressing her grief, and he prods her into wandering further
from home and riding in a car again. Finch convinces Violet to return to her
avocation of writing and, eventually, driving. When Finch’s untreated mood
disorder causes him to sink into depression, Finch is unable to accept Violet’s
attempt to help him. Violet finds Finch’s body after following a series of
clues he left in text messages. She grieves the loss of her lover as well as
her sister. Eventually, Violet starts to accept these tragedies and anticipates
a bright future.
CHARLIE DONAHUE
Charlie is Finch's tranquil and strong dearest companion. He
helps Finch without falling back on psychotherapeutic language. In particular,
when he sees that Finch has climbed the ringer tower at the secondary school, he
follows and nonchalantly reminds his companion that the cafeteria is serving
pizza for lunch; in this manner, it would be a terrible day to hop.
Charlie is the calm inverse of the hero, Finch. A splendid
and physically capable African-American understudy, Charlie shuns sports groups
to try not to adjust to what he thinks about a racial generalization. He
chooses for play chess and work on the yearbook staff all things considered. A
valid and faithful companion to Finch, Charlie is irritated by the deceptive
pain communicated at Finch's burial service by similar schoolmates who insulted
his companion; he is an individual from the little gathering that Violet
orchestrates to memorialize Finch at the Purina Pinnacle.
BRENDA SHANK-KRAVITZ
Brenda is also a devoted friend to Finch. She dyes her hair
pink and red and sports a nose ring. Brenda is the antithesis of the “popular
girl” social group to which Violet belonged prior to meeting Finch. Upon
learning of Finch and Violet’s romantic involvement, Brenda warns Violet to
treat her friend with kindness or face the consequences of her anger. Brenda
also expresses condolences to Violet upon the loss of Eleanor. When Violet
begins a new online magazine, “Germ,” to replace the one she created with her
late sister, she invites Brenda to be a participant. Eventually, the two girls
become best friends. Brenda is a primary participant in the small, closed
memorial ceremony for Finch that Violet arranges at the Purina Tower.
AMANDA MONK
Amanda, a cheerleader, is the quintessential teenage “mean
girl,” whose popularity stems as much from the fear that she invokes in others
as it does from her father’s ownership of liquor stores and her apparent habit
of “giving out” easily. Although Amanda maintains a confident and assertive
exterior, she happens into Finch at a “Life is Life” meeting, which is a support
group for suicidal teens. She reveals that she is bulimic, depressed, and
suffers from self-loathing. Though she has treated Finch cruelly in the past,
he assures her that he will never reveal her presence in the group to anyone
else. Amanda dates Gabe Romero, aka “Roamer,” who has taunted Finch since grade
school and labeled him with the nickname of “Freak.” After Finch’s death,
Amanda ends this romantic relationship, asks to be included in the lunch group
with Violet and Brenda, and participates in his memorial ceremony at Purina
Tower.
LINDA FINCH
Linda Finch is the 41-year-old mother of Theodore, Kate, and
Decca Finch. She is emotionally devastated when her abusive husband leaves her
to marry a younger woman. Well-meaning but inadequate to the task of caring for
her mentally ill son, Mrs. Finch copes by drinking wine and confiding in
girlfriends. Although she is the mother of three, she never checks her
answering machine for important messages and maintains only a superficial
involvement in her children’s daily lives. She works at two part-time jobs (she
is an unsuccessful real estate salesperson and a clerk in a local bookstore).
Physically and emotionally scarred from her abusive marriage, Mrs. Finch
strikes her son Finch as a victim, and he attempts to console and protect her;
he never feels that she would be capable of understanding his pain or
psychiatric symptoms. Mrs. Finch is essentially loving but unaware of the
indicators of teenage suicide. Timid and fragile, she requests Violet investigate
the locale where Finch may be found in order to spare herself the trauma of
identifying her son’s body.
TED FINCH
Ted is Linda Finch’s ex-husband and the father of Theodore,
Kate, and Decca Finch. A former hockey player, he is easily enraged and may be
the genetic origin of Finch’s bipolar tendencies. He remarries a younger woman
and lives in a nice house in a more expensive part of town than the one in
which his ex-wife and children reside. The narrative emphasizes Ted’s violent
behavior. He assaults his son twice over the course of the book, and Finch
documents many previous assaults. Finch reveals to Violet that his father was
the cause of a terrible scar on his abdomen.
All The Bright Places Themes
THE HIDDEN SUFFERING OF MENTAL ILLNESS
Characters all through the book take steps to conceal their
psychological maladjustments. In the wake of being named a "freak" by
a schoolmate while endeavoring to share scattered considerations, Theodore
Finch figures out how to keep his sentiments and temperaments to himself.
Amanda Priest, a well known team promoter, goes to a self destruction support
bunch yet swears Finch to mystery. Violet conceals the degree of her sadness.
The book shows the eventually deplorable results of quietness encompassing
psychological wellness.
Finch is the essential vehicle through which this topic is
investigated. By all accounts, he is very shrewd, has accomplished early
acknowledgment to NYU, and is a talented performer and lyricist, yet as a
general rule he battles with side effects of fomentation and despondency. His
accounts demonstrate that he has encountered abnormal considerations and
sentiments since youth however has would not uncover them as a result of the
manner in which he may be seen. In particular, he specifies being able to
"see" cerebral pains to a companion, Gabe Romero, when the two are in
eighth grade. "Drifter" in this way labels Finch as a
"freak," driving the young fellow to encounter underestimation by his
companions. Finch expounds on his extensive stretches of being "Sleeping"
(clinically discouraged) and "Alert" (hyper). He takes gallant steps
to stay "Alert" by running for a significant distance consistently
and making rattles off of techniques to hold himself back from nodding off.
Notwithstanding his endeavors, and the impetus of a proceeded with relationship
with Violet Markey, he at last capitulates to misery. He has had a long lasting
interest with the subject and has a broad information on related random data;
regardless, he some way or another escapes everyone's notice of a useless framework
that permits him to experience an untreated mental issue.
This subject go on in the creator's depiction of the Finch
family's response to his months-long episodes of resting and regular vanishings
from the home for a few days. The running response is that these ways of
behaving are, basically, essential for Finch's persona. His more established
sister, Kate, to whom he is close, credits large numbers of his weaknesses to
deep rooted actual maltreatment by their dad. His mom, overpowered by situation,
doesn't think he is needing mental assistance. The outcome is that Finch
experiences alone, scared that further disclosure of his side effects will
yield expanded disparagement, and dependent upon strategies like sluggish
breathing and building up to beat fomentation and nervousness. At the point
when his mind-set decays for the last time, Finch's just solace lies in
relocating to his room storeroom, where he feels less defenseless and ready to
control his apprehensions. While his acumen permits him to offer wry remarks
about his side effects and make music, it works to his detriment when his
psychological nimbleness helps him in masking his suffering and, consequently,
being deprived of therapeutic care.
THE ROLE OF CONFORMITY IN ADOLESCENT CULTURE
Finch and many other characters are driven by a desire to fit
in with their peers. The book shows how this desire can have negative impacts.
As an eighth grader, Theodore Finch makes the mistake of confiding some of his
symptoms to Gabe Romero, who was his close friend. “Roamer” shares this
information with his parents, and this results in school officials, the Finch
family, and Theodore’s classmates being apprised of his situation. He is given
the nickname, “Freak,” and this follows him throughout high school. After this,
Finch determines to hide his symptoms and not speak about his troubles, even
with his guidance counselor, Mr. Embry. Finch fears divulging this information
would further ostracize him. In this case, desire for conformity has disastrous
effects.
Finch’s family also tries to hide any troubles. In a more
functional family system, this information would have resulted in psychiatric
intervention; however, the Finches are embarrassed by the revelation and fear
being stigmatized. Theodore is left to his own devices, and the techniques that
he develops in order to deal with his symptoms render him aberrational in his
adolescent peer group. Specifically, he disappears from school for weeks at a
time and claims to have suffered from the flu; in fact, he is suffering from
intermittent, crippling depression. He runs for miles every evening when he is
in a manic cycle. He counts and breathes slowly when he fears losing his temper
or succumbing to anxiety. All the while, he is taunted and provoked by Romero
and, with notable exceptions such as his true friends, most of his classmates. He
realizes that he is brighter than most of them, but he still suffers the pain
of being named “most suicidal” student in the school gossip rag and being
considered a social untouchable. Ironically, Amanda Monk, the apparent soul of
teenage conformity and one of Finch’s harshest critics, is a member of a
suicide support group for teenagers. Finch sees her there, and she reveals that
she hates herself, much as Finch hates himself, and is subject to the same
negative, punitive self-perception.
Violet aims for conformity at the beginning of the book,
going so far as to avoid Finch when an association might harm her reputation.
It speaks well for Violet’s character when she overcomes the shallow standards
of her former, socially acceptable group and branches out into relationships
with Finch, Brenda, and Charlie. She makes a conscious decision to risk
ostracism and ridicule when she commits to dating Finch; nonetheless, she
defies the judgment of her parents and contemporaries when she finds qualities
in Theodore that do not exist in other boys she has dated. Her growth emanates
from the excruciating loss of her sister, Eleanor. Violet’s reaction to the tragedy
causes her to renounce her former extracurricular activities, (e.g.,
cheerleading and orchestra) as she changes her appearance to be less
attractive. While a hairstyle featuring bangs and large glasses may have suited
Eleanor, they do not enhance Violet’s appearance; thus, a physical
metamorphosis precedes her intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual
evolution. Her decision to embrace Finch, both literally and metaphorically,
foreshadows Violet’s transition from a conformist personality paralyzed by
grief to a resilient, albeit wounded, autonomous individual who anticipates a
wealth of life experiences.
REACTIONS TO DEATH
The creator, Jennifer Niven, relates in an epilog that her
extraordinary granddad passed on from a self-caused discharge twisted some time
before her introduction to the world. It is hazy whether this act was
deliberate or coincidental; Niven's family never examined it, yet the passing
has impacted them for ages. Also, the creator found the group of kid she
"knew and cherished" who had ended it all (381). These encounters
prepared her to make nuanced characters with complex profound responses to the
passings of friends and family, specifically the culpability that frequently
follows demise.
Violet Markey endures a car collision on a frigid scaffold
that she had encouraged her sister to roll over as they voyaged home from a
party. Her sister, Eleanor, passed on in the accident. Violet, who considered
Eleanor her closest companion, encounters responses going from pain to seethe
over this misfortune. A prototypical all-American team promoter preceding this
occasion, Violet retreats from her past exercises, companions, and side
interests. She can't center, thus her energy for composing and her capacity to
finish school tasks endure. She communicates her sorrow by copying Eleanor's
haircut and wearing her glasses, albeit neither compliment her. Violet is
confined and overpowered so much that she thinks about self destruction
herself. Incidentally, Finch, who eventually commits suicide, saves her. Her
loss of motion is made to some degree by her family's powerlessness think back
about Eleanor or to share their misery at her flight. The deepest desires her
folks held for her late sister fall on Violet. These couple with their all around
existing assumptions for Violet's future, and the weight wears on her. While
Eleanor goes through an actual end, the existence that Violet knew before this
misfortune has passed on too. The Markey guardians, while grieving Eleanor's
misfortune, attempt to move Violet back into the world by empowering her to
connect socially and drive a vehicle once more. The idea of their courage is
vital: they purposely urge Violet to get back to the action that killed
Eleanor.
There is a reasonable divergence in the responses of others
to the passings of Eleanor and Finch. Violet is the beneficiary of sympathies
from instructors and colleagues almost a year after her sister's passing.
Alternately, Finch's demise is recognized and grieved, at times dishonestly, by
relatives and cohorts; in any case, others suspect the chance of self
destruction, yet this is never affirmed freely by his folks. Their thinking is
that no self destruction note was found; in this way, Finch's end was
coincidental. This hypothesis is predicated upon the shows of another time.
Finch composes messages and messages to his mom, sisters, Violet, and dearest
companions that are what could be compared to the printed copy self destruction
notes of prior ages. His folks dread the disgrace related with self destruction
that won during their own childhood, and similar turns out as expected for
their apprehension about conceding the kid needed mental mediation. Mysterious
reasoning and forswearing are strong adapting gadgets and unquestionably less
difficult than conceding that various methodologies could have forestalled this
misfortune.
Violet Markey is a survivor of an unexpected, tragic loss as well as that of a suicide. She is in love with Finch but angry with him. She wonders why their relationship was an inadequate incentive for him to live; she feels guilt about being unable to save him; and she sees him everywhere she goes. Mr. Embry, the school counselor who worked with both Finch and Violet, shares this sense of guilt at having been unsuccessful in saving him, but he reminds Violet that her emotional survival is contingent upon accepting the tragedy and the fact that her life is now changed forever.
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