What is the difference between drunk
driving and intentionally causing an accident? There's no difference, in both
cases, consciously or not, they end up harming other people. Even though Juwan
was the drunk driver who was using his phone, Glen was the one who causes the
accident. There was a chain of events that Glen endured that causes somebody's
death. To top it off, as The New York
Times Magazine’s review says, Glen was offended just by the sight of a
black teenager who was driving too fast in his neighborhood.
As drunk drivers have to do after an
accident, Glen had to learn how to live with what he did. He had to wake up
every morning and remember that he killed somebody. He decided to cut the wheel
and see through the rearview window what happened to Juwan. Sara was with
him during this long ride home. She saw everything. He forgot completely
about his parental good judgement. What about Juwan's family pain? Tawana's
pain was so big that at the end she didn't care about suing him or find someone
to blame. She wanted to close the case, since it kept reminding her every
detail that happened.Alcohol takes over, you act reckless and selfish. You don't care about anyone in that moment.
But after? Maybe you'll end up just like Glen. From the start, he was not honest with his wife. She started to piece things together whenever a situation occurred with Rizzo or Tawana that Glen had to explain to her the background. This accident changed him so much that it cost him his marriage. Sara was never the same with him. She was young but not dumb. He ended up alone, stuck in that day. It was not after two years that he accepted he was wrong, when Sara says that she didn’t said anything that it was his fault and she decided not to tell him because she thought he’d be upset. He carried with him the picture which reminded him to be careful. Decisions define you. You can do so much harm. The best thing you can do after is to enter into a rehabilitation program, like the one that the exhibition mentions, and give your testimony to try and create conscious in society. It is as Glen wrote at the beginning of the book remembering what Rizzo told him once: "People confess, he said, to relieve the psychological and physiological effects of guilt, regret, anxiety, shame. To share the burden with someone else. To at least glimpse the possibility of redemption..."(p.1)
Erika, Glen's accident can become an eternal debate of, if he had all the fault or partial fault of the accident. I guess, in a way, it's true what you said that an accident it's still an accident. However, through the novel, the readers grows fondly of Glen because, in reality, he is not a bad person, he only had a bad day. Without a doubt, the best thing that Glen could've done before the accident was rearrange his whole life and help others who had gone through similar things. Everything happens for a reason, and if that reason is to help others and create awareness, so be it. Sadly, he decided to keep it a secret. One that would hunt him for the rest of his life.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you: alcohol does take control of people's body and allows them to do, without any sort of morality or shame, things that they would not normally do on their free from intoxication state of mind. This explains why many people often regret their actions the morning after a really intense night of reckless drinking. People often do stupid things while intoxicated.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Glen may have caused the situation, which led to his guilt eating him up inside, but Juwan had also blame on the outcome. This situation is a controversial one, but in the end, the relation it had to the exhibition made the message of the story clear; drunk driving will always be a bad choice.
ReplyDeleteI like to believe that Glen was offended not by the black teen, but instead by the fact that he was driving like a careless and irresponsible driver.
ReplyDeleteBut, really, I don't think he purposefully caused the accident. He never expected Juwan to react the way he did. And, either way, who knows if Juwan would have just continued driving and killed someone later on? Then he wouldn't be seen as an unfortunate victim, he'd be seen as a murderer.
Still, I agree wholeheartedly with you about what alcohol does to you. It's a monster that takes everything away from you. And it shouldn't be taken as lightly as it is nowadays.