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Chapter 2: Shoshanna Weber
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
Tina drives Chase to his first day of eighth grade. They’re alone (Johnny has gone back to college). Chase is troubled because when he told Tina about a girl (Shoshanna) dumping frozen yogurt on his head, Tina downplayed the event’s importance and claimed not to know what girl would have done that—but Chase thinks Tina does know. As Tina pauses the car in front of the school, Chase asks her to tell him whatever she hasn’t been saying. Tina, turning bright red, tells him he’s likely to hear “good and bad” stories about his past, and he should just stay calm.
Tina’s claim that Chase will hear “good and bad” things about himself at school indicates that he has a good reputation with some people and a bad one with others, which may make it harder for him to discover what he was really like before his accident. Her warning that he should stay calm hints that some of his past actions may upset him now that he has amnesia—implying a split between the person Chase is at his core and the person that context conditioned him to be.
Themes
As Chase enters the school, he notices some students giving him funny looks, which he attributes to his visible injuries. Soon, large boys surround Chase, slapping his back despite his injured shoulder. Chase identifies two of them as the boys in his cell phone background, whom Tina explained were his friends Aaron and Bear. When one boy asks whether Chase will have healed in time for their first football game, Chase says he can’t play; the doctor doesn’t want him risking head injuries during recovery. Several of the boys voice disappointment and disagreement.
The other football players casually strike Chase’s injured shoulder and suggest he should play football against his doctor’s orders; these actions show that they, like Frank, value stereotypical masculine toughness over prudence. Aaron and Bear participated in Chase’s Halloween antics and, per Shoshanna, his bullying of Joel—but it isn’t clear whether their friendship led pre-accident Chase down a bad path or vice versa.
Themes
Aaron tells the other boys to stop; they should know that sometimes football players get injured. He and Bear pull Chase away down a crowded hallway—shoving students out of the way as they go. They come to a bench occupied by a sixth grader. Chase asks whether the rest of the bench is taken, but rather than wait for the boy’s reply, Bear scares him off.
Aaron’s protectiveness toward Chase and his matter-of-fact claim that football players have to deal with injuries suggest he may be a real friend to Chase despite both boys’ bad behavior—and he may also be smarter than some of the other football players. When Bear casually terrorizes the sixth grader, it shows that bullying is a routine part of Aaron and Bear’s behavior.
Themes
After the three boys sit down, Chase explains that he has amnesia. At first, Aaron and Bear are skeptical, even suspicious, but eventually they realize Chase is serious. Aaron worriedly asks whether Chase’s memory will return. When Chase says the doctors don’t know, Aaron and Bear look “freaked out,” which makes Chase feel friendlier toward them. He reassures them that he’s the same person even if he lacks his memories and that they’ll do even “better stuff” together than before. Bear expresses hope that even if Chase can’t play football, he’ll be better for lacrosse in the spring, and Aaron says they’ll support Chase—while slapping Chase’s injured shoulder.
When Chase reveals his amnesia, Aaron and Bear are suspicious of him, hinting that although Chase is telling the truth now, he may have been a liar in the past. He interprets Aaron and Bear’s “freaked out” reaction to his lost memories as concern for him, which makes him like them more—but their reaction may hint that there’s something specific they want Chase to remember. Chase’s focus on doing “better stuff” in the future indicates that he wants to focus on what he can do, not on what he’s lost, while Aaron and Bear’s reactions—focusing on sports, hitting Chase’s injury—show that the boys’ friendship centers on stereotypically masculine preoccupations like toughness and physical prowess.
Themes
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An adult in a suit approaches Chase, Bear, and Aaron, and introduces himself as principal Dr. Fitzwallace. When Dr. Fitzwallace tells Chase that they’ve met before, Bear blurts, “You can say that again.” Dr. Fitzwallace leads Chase into his office, where Chase sees a photo that he recognizes from his own bedroom: Chase in football gear, holding up a trophy. Beside it is another, much older photo with another boy holding up a trophy. Dr. Fitzwallace explains that the older photo is of Frank, who was on the football team the only other time the school won state.
When Bear blurts, “You can say that again,” it indicates that Chase has been in trouble with the principal many times. Together with Aaron and Bear’s rudeness and physical roughness, this detail suggests the boys may be troublemakers or bullies. Yet Dr. Fitzwallace’s office also contains photos of Chase and his father Frank winning the state championship in football, illustrating that the school community values athletic success whether the winning athletes are kind people or not.
Themes
Chase, surprised, admits he didn’t know his father Frank had won state. Dr. Fitzwallace invites Chase to take a seat, tells him the school’s staff has been informed of Chase’s amnesia, and tells him not to waste his “completely fresh start.” Chase, shocked, wonders how awful he must have been pre-amnesia for Dr. Fitzwallace to give him this advice.
In an earlier scene, Frank fixated on Chase continuing to play football despite his concussion. Together with the revelation that Frank was also a state football champion, this detail suggests that Frank wants Chase to follow in his footsteps even if it risks Chase’s health. Yet when Dr. Fitzwallace calls Chase’s amnesia a “fresh start”—rather than a painful personal tragedy—it implies that Chase was pursuing a bad path prior to his accident.
Themes
