Community and Tragedy Theme Analysis

Narrated by four high school seniors, This is Where It Ends details the effects of a mass shooting on the small, insular community of Opportunity, Alabama. As they prepare for the first day of school at the novel’s outset, all the protagonists are concerned with their individual goals and feel either trapped or alienated by their community. However, as it becomes apparent that there’s an active shooter in the building, each narrator explicitly chooses to act to help the larger community, surpassing their own and others’ expectations of bravery and self-sacrifice. By the end of the novel, although the town is still reeling from this disaster, students and parents have renewed their commitment to and faith in the community. Ultimately, the novel points out the ability of traumatic events to strengthen existing community ties and forge new ones.

In the novel’s opening pages, nearly every character is dissatisfied with his or her place at Opportunity High School. Making fun of the principal’s predictable first-day-of-school speech, which encourages students to embrace their school community, Claire says that “if Opportunity shaped me, I didn’t notice.” She feels that her community has little bearing on her character and is unable to help her cope with the uncertain future after graduation.

Sylvia is likewise dissatisfied with Opportunity. She describes her acceptance to Brown as the “ticket out of town” she desperately wants, yet she’s also wary of leaving her sick Mamá behind; her thoughts show that she’s both distanced from her community and trapped by it. Sylvia’s girlfriend Autumn also longs to leave. Her single-minded passion for dance, which no one else in the community shares, leads her to feel alienated and to set her mind on moving to New York. She’s convinced that no one in her town can understand her thoughts or desires. She’s additionally unhappy because the mores of her community prevent her from going public about her relationship with Sylvia.

While they paint an unsympathetic and fractured picture of their community, the protagonists all act in its defense during the school shooting. Sylvia’s brother Tomás and his best friend Fareed have always seen themselves as outsiders and mischief-makers, but they risk their lives to unchain the auditorium and free their fellow students. Hiding at the back of the auditorium, Sylvia quietly and bravely alerts other students rather than immediately making her own escape; meanwhile, Autumn confronts her brother Tyler, the shooter, bravely risking herself to save people from whom she claims to be extremely distanced.  Rather than rushing out the doors, alerting Tyler’s attention, and leading him to shoot more people, the students sneak out of the auditorium quietly and cooperatively. This episode suggests that the characters are much more committed to those around them than they previously thought.

Outside the school when the shooting begins, Claire runs to get help from the police and begins to feel part of the school as never before. Telling an officer that “Opportunity is our home,” she shows how the drastic circumstances of the shooting have altered the thoughts she expressed at the beginning of the novel.

By the end of the book, although the town is still reeling from the shooting and deaths of dozens of students, a strong sense of community is pervasive. In the last scene, all the students sneak onto the school roof to light lanterns inscribed with the names of the victims. This communal expression of grief shows that they find comfort and fulfillment in being together—not, as they believed at the beginning, in getting out of town for good. It’s especially important that the ceremony is led by Fareed, who has previously felt discriminated against because he is Muslim; it’s clear now that the other students have learned to accept him and that he feels more entrenched in the community.

As she lights a lantern, Sylvia releases her worries about caring for her sick mother, which have dogged her throughout the book. Although her twin, Tomás, has died, she’s learned that she can count on her remaining and large family community to support her, rather than shouldering all these burdens alone. At the novel’s outset, Claire felt that her community had given her little insight into her future; however, the events of the day have inspired her to invest fully in that community by becoming a teacher.

As the novel ends and the protagonists consider the direction of their lives after this awful event, each one considers the ways in which their community has influenced them and continues to support them. Their feelings now argue that, when collectively experienced and mourned, traumatic events can strengthen a community’s bonds.