56 pages • 1 hour read
Maria PadianWrecked
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Difficulty of Identifying the Truth in Sexual Assault Cases
The crux of the conflict of Wrecked is that, like in many rape or sexual assault cases, there is no hard evidence to support either Jenny or Jordan’s story. Maria Padian carefully portrays this complicated situation to highlight how difficult it is to identify and prove the truth. Through the different narratives presented by the multiple characters, Padian highlights the multiple subjective perspectives contained in one investigation.
Early in the novel, it becomes painfully clear that there will not be an easy resolution to Jenny’s filed complaint against Jordan. In response to her allegations, he immediately begins telling his peers that a freshman girl is claiming he raped her and asserting that he doesn’t “need to roofie some girl to get a little action” (88). Jordan’s bravado and tendency towards exaggeration are part of the same dysfunction that cause him to rape Jenny in the first place. Padian illustrates Jordan’s behavior not just to complicate the plot but to bring to light how the social dynamics of a rape case matter just as much as the facts themselves. Through Jordan’s insistence that he hasn’t done anything wrong, other students begin to misinterpret the story, thinking things like, “some freshman girl is upset because Bockus gave her a drink” (133).
Where Jordan spreads lies, Padian characterizes Jenny as focused on telling the truth, even though she herself can’t remember the specific details. When Jenny files the claim, she writes “two full pages, single-spaced, explaining exactly what happened that night” (110) using precise language like “nonconsensual sexual intercourse” (192) to describe what happened with as much objectivity as possible. Yet the situation is complicated by the fact that, even though Jenny believes “every word” (245), her statement doesn’t accurately represent the facts of what happened because of her impairment.
The central strategy that Padian uses to illuminate the difficulty of identifying the truth is through Richard and Haley’s relationship. As the two young adults wrestle with one another’s perspectives on the case, Padian reveals how hard it can be to identify the truth as a third-party. Towards the conclusion of the novel, Richard, despite not trusting Jordan, explains how complicated it feels for him, telling Haley that even though she says “Jenny was raped […] I have no clue what happened. Jordan said it was consensual. Is he lying to me? Or to himself? Or is that the truth? That’s why there’s an investigation” (311). The investigation itself, as Richard and Haley must discover, is no less capable of establishing one hard line of truth with evidence. Over the course of Wrecked, Padian paints a clear and challenging picture of rape cases that shows how hard it can be to get justice for victims as well as how much the social life on a college campus can impact the outcome of the case.
Moral Obligations and Honoring or Breaking Confidentiality
A central tension of Wrecked is whether characters will remain trustworthy and keep or break confidentiality. By placing Richard and Haley in advisor roles for the key students in the rape case, Padian makes both protagonists struggle with what it means to be honorable. Jenny chooses Haley as an advisor because she is someone Jenny “trust[s]” (76) while Richard, whom Jordan chooses for more nefarious reasons, feels sure that he cannot “becom[e]” a liar “for Jordan Bockus” (86).
Richard and Haley continue to wrestle with what these new roles mean as they begin a relationship together; at first, Haley asserts that they “can’t see each other until this thing is over” (163) so that they can avoid further “honor code violation[s]” (136). As each protagonist finds themselves in more and more complicated situations where the truth is hard to identify, Richard and Haley are also challenged by other people to “talk about this rape case” (266) and break the confidentiality they have sworn to. It is an intentional choice on Padian’s part that neither Richard nor Haley is able to completely maintain confidentiality.
Padian’s minor characters also struggle with morality. Tamra, for example, admits to giving Jenny alcohol and leaving her alone. While she feels guilty for abandoning Jenny, she seems more concerned with the consequences she might be facing for providing a minor with alcohol. Similarly, it seems that Joe wants to help Jenny out when he offers her a place to rest, and he also regrets giving her alcohol, but he’s again more concerned with his own repercussions rather than Jenny’s feelings. Through these characters, Padian highlights the complexity of what it means to be a young adult placed in such an ethically difficult situation.
Young Adults Navigating Parental Expectations
An important underlying thematic element of Wrecked is the way that young adults, specifically college students, navigate their development in relation to their parents’ expectations. Both Jenny and Haley experience a strong conflict between what they want and what their parents express as important. This is illustrated early on by Haley’s mother, who insinuates that Haley needs to take her concussion more seriously and figure out when she can play soccer again. Haley bristles at her mother’s “rhetorical” questions, which don’t take into account Haley’s feelings or thoughts about the situation. College students, as Padian shows, are in a unique position of both being tethered to their parents via tuition (in most cases) but living separately and in a different social environment.
In a more intense example of the difficulty of working through a relationship with parents, Jenny faces enormous “pressure” (74) from her parents, feeling “locked in the role of some parents’ good daughter” (130). It takes almost the entire novel before Jenny feels confident enough to break free from this restricting relationship, asserting herself finally by shouting, “I want to do what I want! Not what you want” (261). Jenny’s transition into a stronger, more self-actualized person allows her to stand up for herself to her parents and to make her own decisions. While parents are mostly portrayed as being supportive, if misguidedly so, both Jenny and Haley serve as examples of the ways that young adults have to choose to develop their own sense of self and decision-making capacity.
Traumatic Impact of Rape
Though we don’t see Jenny’s first-person perspective in much of the novel, Padian makes sure to show the complex ways that a traumatic rape can manifest for a survivor, both psychologically and physically. Early on, Haley observes Jenny’s behaviors and appearance and notes several characteristics that are in line with what psychologists would describe as typical impacts of trauma. For example, in the first chapter, Haley watches Jenny rocking “slightly, forward and back” with “her gaze […] fixed ahead, at nothing in particular” (9). Later, Haley will also note Jenny’s transition into someone who cares less about personal hygiene and who withdraws more emotionally. Since Haley isn’t a trained mental health professional, she struggles with how to describe these changes, telling Richard only that something “bad” happened to Jenny, “she was okay and now she’s…wrecked” (145). In the italicized passages, Padian provides more perspective on how Jenny feels during the rape, in which she has a fight-or-flight response, freezing rather than being able to move to escape. She feels “her mind frenzied, her body unresponsive. She tries to scream, to speak, to move” (330). The intensity of this description is matched by Jenny’s own difficulty sharing this story during the investigation, further proving how devastating this kind of experience can be on a person’s psyche.
One of the other ways that Padian highlights the traumatic impact of rape is through the social consequences that survivors often face. As Jordan insists on his innocence, Jenny faces ridicule and critique from many young adults who don’t know her. Even those who are caring, like Haley’s friend Madison, don’t actually engage with checking on Jenny. Later, when Jordan’s charges are dropped after he withdraws from the college, Jenny has to assert to Haley that the “fact is he’s free and [she’s] left with all this” (39). As the survivor, Jenny is forced to both face the psychological impacts of the rape as well as the social consequences of being the girl who accused a fellow student of this crime.
