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Chapter 15: Brendan Espinoza
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
Joel, deeply unhappy at boarding school, keeps calling Shoshanna and their parents to ask about things at home. Shoshanna still avoids telling him about the contest video, Chase, and Mr. Solway, though she’s started hanging out with Chase and Mr. Solway even when they’re not working on the project. Though it feels disloyal, Shoshanna can’t help but notice that Chase’s personality has totally changed: he’s become kind, almost like a “grandson” to the childless Mr. Solway. Chase’s friendship with Mr. Solway is much deeper than hers; Mr. Solway thinks of her as Chase’s friend or, possibly, girlfriend. When Mr. Solway calls her that, she and Chase both blush and correct him—but Mr. Solway just thinks they’re in denial.
Shoshanna is a smart girl. Though loyalty to Joel has distorted her judgment up to this point, she can’t help but recognize that amnesia has seriously affected Chase’s personality and that Chase and Mr. Solway have developed a real friendship, almost like the familial love between grandfather and “grandson.” Mr. Solway’s casual supposition that Shoshanna and Chase are dating—though they aren’t—even hints that the two kids may be developing crushes on each other.
Themes
Though Mr. Solway is much friendlier now, he’s still ornery, argumentative, and sometimes tiresome—even to himself. One day, after he falls asleep on himself, Chase and Shoshanna decide to leave him in peace, go get food, and watch the footage they’ve collected. Shoshanna suggests the frozen yogurt shop for food, promising not to dump hers on Chase this time. While watching footage, they agree that they’ll keep visiting Mr. Solway after the project is over.
Chase and Shoshanna’s agreement to keep visiting Mr. Solway after the video is over makes clear that they value his friendship, though the two kids and Mr. Solway exist in such different social spheres that they might never have interacted were it not for Chase’s community service and the video context. This fact emphasizes that interacting with people in different social spheres from one’s own can be a valuable, generative experience.
Themes
Someone in the shop says Shoshanna’s name. It’s her mother, staring in shock at her daughter working comfortably with Chase. When Shoshanna tries to explain, her mother demands that Shoshanna go get in the family car. Chase tries to speak, and Shoshanna’s mother interrupts, criticizing his nerve and telling him not to come near anyone in the Weber family. As Shoshanna’s mother forces her out the shop door, Shoshanna asks whether they can at least talk—and her mother assures her that they will talk.
Shoshanna’s mother’s anger at Chase is justified: before his accident, Chase bullied her son Joel so badly that she felt she had to send Joel to boarding school. Yet her refusal to listen to what Shoshanna has to say about Chase suggests that she is too invested in her own narrative about who Chase is to alter her opinion based on new evidence.
Themes
Shoshanna’s mother and father stage an intervention at home, telling Shoshanna she can’t be friends with Joel’s bully. Shoshanna explains that they aren’t friends, exactly—Chase joined the video club and found the subject for Shoshanna’s contest entry. When Shoshanna’s father suggests that Chase might have nefarious ulterior motives for working with her, she says that she hated the old Chase, but he’s changed since his amnesia, and she’s starting to like him as a person. Her mother says that it doesn’t matter whether Chase has changed, because what he did to Joel was “unforgivable.”
Shoshanna’s mother claims that even if Chase’s personality has altered, what he did was “unforgivable” and so Shoshanna can’t become friends with him. This harsh concept of responsibility entails that even if an individual grows and changes after committing a bad act, it’s reasonable to despise them forever if the act was bad enough. Yet Shoshanna’s mother and father haven’t interacted with Chase since his accident; it’s unclear whether they will remain so harshly judgmental if they do.
Themes
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Shoshanna’s father speculates that Shoshanna hasn’t told Joel she’s working with Chase. Shoshanna admits she hasn’t—and then says that maybe she should: Joel hates boarding school, but since Chase doesn’t even remember the version of himself who bullied Joel, maybe Joel can come home. Though her parents are clearly struck by the idea, her dad asks what will happen if Shoshanna is incorrect in her assessment of the situation. Shoshanna isn’t sure, but she wants Joel to come home, so she messages him saying they have things to discuss.
While Shoshanna’s mother claims Chase can never be forgiven for his bullying, both she and Shoshanna’s father are immediately distracted from judging him when Shoshanna breaches the possibility that Joel could return home—an action that would partially reverse the damage Chase did. This reaction suggests that pain over Joel’s absence is partially motivating the Weber parents’ extremely harsh attitude toward post-accident Chase.
Themes
