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Chapter 12: Chase Ambrose
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Restart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Memory, and Responsibility
Reputation vs. Reality
Masculinity
Social Hierarchies and Bullying
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Shoshanna is furious that the video club kids have forgiven Chase just because he’s a cool kid who pays attention to them—but her research suggests that the Medal of Honor is a rare award, so she decides to meet Mr. Solway. As she’s walking to the assisted living facility, Joel messages to ask what she’s doing. When she explains that she’s meeting a war hero for her video project, Joel asks how she discovered him. Shoshanna doesn’t want to tell Joel that Chase has insinuated himself into video club, of which Joel used to be a member, so she answers evasively.
Shoshanna believes that the low-status video-club kids are giving Chase a second chance because his higher status in the social hierarchy has overawed them—an unfair interpretation of the club’s behavior, given that all of them but Brendan initially wanted to exclude him from the club. Shoshanna’s unfair interpretation, motivated by her anger and loyalty to Joel, is ironic inasmuch as she’s interested in interviewing Mr. Solway precisely because his Medal of Honor marks him as a high-status person with a significant reputation, whatever he’s actually like as an individual.
Themes
In the facility, Shoshanna finds Mr. Solway’s room and explains to him that she wants to interview him for a school video project because he won a Medal of Honor. Mr. Solway angrily tells her he’s not superior to many other veterans and that he doesn’t want gratitude or attention. Feeling defeated, Shoshanna privately compares him to Joel—determined to be loudly unhappy—though she thinks Joel has a right to be unhappy, whereas Mr. Solway is “just plain mean.”
Mr. Solway’s anger at Shoshanna’s request emphasizes that he feels his reputation for heroism, symbolized by the Medal of Honor, is undeserved: many soldiers who were as brave as he was never received such a medal. Shoshanna’s internal response to Mr. Solway reveals her judgmental tendencies: she immediately decides that Mr. Solway reacts the way he does because he’s “just plain mean,” without considering other options, and indirectly criticizes Joel’s vocal unhappiness at Melton even as she acknowledges his unhappiness is legitimate.
Themes
Chase enters the room with a snack for Mr. Solway. Instantly, Mr. Solway looks happier. Shoshanna concludes that these two awful people would naturally get along. Chase tries to say hello to Shoshanna, though he cuts himself off when she gives him an angry look. When Mr. Solway asks whether Shoshanna is Chase’s friend, Chase explains that they’re in video club together and he suggested Mr. Solway as an interviewee. Abruptly, Mr. Solway changes his mind about being interviewed: he wants to help “the two of you out.” Shoshanna, horrified that Chase is apparently now her partner in the contest, wonders what she’ll say to Joel.
Shoshanna observes that Chase and Mr. Solway are friendly and happy to see one another. Rather than alter her opinion of Chase or Mr. Solway in the face of new evidence, she decides they’re friendly to one another because they’re both terrible. Yet again, her love and loyalty to her brother are warping her judgment. Interestingly, however, when Mr. Solway is willing to help “the two” of them—that is, Shoshanna and Chase together—Shoshanna assumes that she has to work with Chase now. This unthinking assumption—she doesn’t refuse to work with Chase, though she obviously could—reveals how much she cares about producing a great video for the contest.
Themes
