Relationships

In my last post, I told you about the Butterfly Effect and how it relates to Daytripper.  Now that you see the connection, let’s dive in a little deeper to other relationships – the ones between Bràs and his father and his best friend, Jorge.

Bràs’ father has a huge effect on him during Daytripper.  The novel starts with the father dying – BOOM emotion!  Throughout the whole book Bràs struggles with his father’s death (like, serious struggle bus), so much so that it actually prevents him from living his life.  The fact that he doesn’t understand the meaning of life makes him refuse to accept death.  Since he can’t accept death, he is reborn in each chapter.  Since he is reborn in each chapter, the novel exists.  So basically, Daytripper revolves around its first event – the death of Bràs’ father. 

I think we take this death so hard as readers because it affects Bràs so much.  We become emotionally invested in him, so when he struggles, so do we.  The relationship between Bràs and his father unravels during the novel, so as we read more and more, we see their relationship more clearly and start to become emotionally attached to his dad too.  Gosh, we’re super clingy.

Maybe it’s just me.

I mean, the novel deals with a lot of death, but it usually goes away in the next chapter… and then happens again (it’s a vicious cycle).  But when Bràs’ father dies, he doesn’t come back.  We see him again in the novel, but only as the younger version of himself.  He isn’t reborn like Bràs.

This same kind of situation happens with Bràs’ best friend, Jorge.  The two of them are attached at the hip.  They have a serious bromance going on.  (Spoiler alert!)  In chapter seven, Jorge goes off the deep end and ends up murdering Bràs and then killing himself.  I know I’m not the only one who freaked out at this. I literally had to put the book down and remember to breathe.  The sad part is, we think that Jorge might come back to life like Bràs, but he doesn’t.  Just like Bràs’ father, Jorge only reappears as himself before he died.

The lives and deaths of Bràs’ father and Jorge shape Bràs as a person, and let us as readers know that he’s the chosen one who gets to relive his life over and over with slight changes so he doesn’t die – the Butterfly Effect.