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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Is Where It Ends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gun Violence
Community and Tragedy
Family and Sibling Relationships
Change, Uncertainty, and Growing Up
Abuse
Summary
Analysis
As the police car draws closer to OHS, the police officer again warns Claire and Chris to stay outside the safety perimeter and wait to be interviewed; they must not get in the way of the officers doing their jobs. Reluctantly, they promise to cooperate. The officer apologizes for not being able to give more information about the kids trapped in the auditorium; Claire, who didn’t even know this small fact about the students’ whereabouts, imagines Matt and her friends trapped inside with a murderer. She grabs Chris’s hand and leans against him as they pull into the parking lot.
Again, Chris is a source of physical and emotional support to Claire during a moment of crisis. In this sense he’s a notable contrast to Tyler, who relied on Claire for support without bothering to offer anything in return. This contrast suggests that fulfilling relationships are only possible when both partners take on equal amounts of emotional labor.
Themes
Sylvia watches Autumn and vows to kill Tyler if he hurts her. On the other side of the auditorium, she sees some teachers and a student, CJ, getting to their feet. She realizes that even though they’re trapped and terrified, they haven’t lost their courage yet. Meanwhile, everyone who heard Tyler talking about Autumn’s “girlfriend” is beginning to look at Sylvia, who feels embarrassed but knows it’s too late to worry about Opportunity’s disapproval.
Part of Tyler’s stated aim is to force others to share his feelings of alienation and acknowledge his control. By persisting in maintaining a community and refusing treat him as an authority figure, the students can subvert his aims, even if they can’t actually fight him.
Themes
In a flashback, Sylvia remembers Autumn’s fifteenth birthday. Still alive, Mrs. Browne takes them to Birmingham to see The Nutcracker and go out for dinner. When she sees how enthralled Autumn is by the performance, she begins to fall in love with the other girl. They hold hands for the first time during the performance, but six weeks later Mrs. Browne dies in a sudden car accident and their carefree girlhood ends. Even though Sylvia is losing her mother as well, she knows that she’s better off than Autumn because she’s able to “be who [she] wanted to be at home.”
It’s important that Sylvia’s love for Autumn springs from a genuine admiration of her girlfriend’s passion and talent. Unlike Tyler, she sees Autumn’s love for dance as a positive trait, not a betrayal or abandonment. For Autumn and Sylvia, growing up yields some benefits—like their relationship with each other—but is also inevitably accompanied by loss, represented here in the form of Mrs. Browne’s death.
Themes
Unfortunately, the chain on the door to the auditorium doesn’t break or even bend under Tomás’s attack. He curses himself for not working harder in PE. Eventually, he’s able to snap half a link; when he breaks the entire chain, he and Fareed, who remains calm and focused, unwind it from the door, careful to make no sound. Before opening one door, they decide to cut the other chains; that way there will be more channels for escape.
Again, Tomás’s hotheadedness contrasts with Fareed’s cool appraisal of the situation. Tomás shows both great potential and room to grow – a combination that heightens the sense of loss when his life if cut short at the end of the novel.
Themes
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More loudly, Autumn tells Tyler that she loves him and that he is her best friend. She doesn’t know if she’s lying. He’s still pointing the gun at her, but he seems confused and uneasy. He tells her that he “lost everything,” but she says she always relied on him above anyone else to protect her and support her in her dream. Bitterly, Tyler says that her dream was just to get away from him, while he wanted to be “your excuse to stay home.” He tells her that he’s been all alone, and that she could never understand his feelings.
Saying that he wants to be her “excuse,” Tyler conjures up the idea of a cozy sibling relationship that could have formed if Autumn stayed home. In reality, though, he wants her to completely sacrifice her aspirations and independence so he can feel more secure. In order to break free of her brother’s control, Autumn must learn to see the events of her life as they really are, rather than accept Tyler’s manipulative explanations.
Themes
Becoming increasingly angry, Autumn asks how she could have abandoned him when he himself has been so distant and cold in the last months. In fact, it’s he who betrayed her to their Dad. Frustrated, Tyler shoots at the ground next to her and tells her that this whole situation is her fault.
By shooting at the ground in frustration, Tyler implicitly suggests that Autumn is right – it’s not possible for her to abandon him when he pushed her away long ago.
Themes
Mei posts on her blog as she makes her way to OHS. She reflects that she’s always liked school, and that her town isn’t to blame for the shooting. Some people comment asking Mei for more of her thoughts on the origin of the shooting, while others share their love of her father’s English classes.
One of the community’s most important functions is to help its members process tragedies like this. Yet the unanswerable questions people are posing to Mei suggest that there are is ultimately a limit to “explaining” meaningless instances of mass violence.
Themes
