Jesse Tafel
Driver’s Ed, Caroline B. Cooney, Published January 1st 1996 by Laurel Leaf
For this semester of How Writer’s Read I had chosen the young adult novel Driver’s Ed. I was suggested to read this book about a year ago by my younger brother who had just finished high school. He is well aware of my love for character development in stories and wanted me to see where the characters go in this story. The genre of young adult fiction was an area that I have not revisited in a long time so I wondered how I would enjoy the overall story by the end and see if I saw the growth that my sibling saw in the characters.
Driver’s Ed is a young adult novel about Remy Marland who is a high school student in the early days of learning how to drive for the first time. Remy takes a drive one night with Morgan Campbell and Nicholas Budie and they decide to be mischievous and steal a stop sign. The story takes place is an American suburb and these three teens do not realize they did not just hurt one person in the community, but many because the sign stealing resulted in the death of a young mother. Throughout the story the guilt weighs heavily on these teenagers who now have grow up faster than the other students and must come to terms with their crime and either turn themselves in or live with the guilt forever.
Remy Marland wants nothing else but to receive her driver’s license. Remy is yearning for that piece of laminated paper because it is a symbol of freedom as a young adult. Remy wanting her driver’s license is really her wanting freedom from the child life. But little does she know the adult life is very scary and full of unwanted surprises much like driving is. The first time the students are seen taking a test drive with Remy in the driver’s seat around page 4. The students are frightened and scared of the surroundings going so fast and other cars on the road next to them and oncoming. This is the adult life zooming past so quick and fast and terrifying. Remy wants to dive head first into this life with no preparation or level headed thinking. She is confident and optimistic but not ready yet.
Remy’s confident nature is her strongest point. She longs for freedom but is reminded by her classmates that a license does not mean freedom, it means enslavement.
“Actually,” said Lark, “you will be the family slave. An unpaid, unappreciated beast of burden. Trapped around the clock in the very same car with Henry and Mac. A lifetime occupation of strapping the baby in and out of the car seat…” (5)
This is the negative side to Remy wanting to rush into the life of an adult because she’s running right into oncoming traffic. She is ignoring her blind-spots. Her impatience will possibly be her downfall. She does not realize she is not free from responsibility, which is one of the most important aspects of being an adult. From the start of Driver’s Ed Remy is established as this character and will have to deal with responsibility in one drastic way or another judging by her confidence and impatience.
As Maddie had said: “The driver’s license is both a symbolic code and a cultural code. It has a literal meaning, as well as a thematic meaning, but also pulls upon experiences that readers encounter as they obtain a driver’s license of their own. These students recognize that this laminated piece of paper allows them to drive, but it also instills upon them this sense of freedom.”
Remy is searching for the forbidden fruit just like the story of Adam and Eve. Remy is Eve and Morgan is Adam. That fateful night when they follow Nicholas (the serpent) in his car to steal the red stop sign (apple) they unexpectedly cause the death of a mother in a car accident. The rest of the book deals with how Remy and Morgan deal with their guilt. To even look further into this possibly being a Biblical reference, Remy’s full name is Rembrandt, who was a Dutch painter from the 1600’s most famous for depicting Biblical scenes and telling narrative stories in his art work that changed over the course of his life.
As teenagers, these characters are trying to fit their way into social norms and the ability to drive and have a driver’s license is one way to reach that “normalcy” so frequently repeated in the story. Anytime the norm is altered these teenagers react in a way only to fit into the societal goals.
The main focus is primarily on Remy because she is the central character, but as the story progresses, the character of Morgan becomes more and more developed and the guilt of the death weighs heavy on his will to live a normal life. Morgan claws at a past he can never go back to, which is a motif of growing up hidden in tragedy in this story.
“Morgan had just turned into the definition of scum: one who forgot the dead woman and only thought about getting away with it. In what sounded like a perfectly normal voice, he informed Mrs. Willit that he wanted to run the pageant this year.” (85-86).
Morgan’s feeling towards himself and towards his peers continues to advance the story further. Since this is a work of speculative fiction with elements of intrigue and suspense, it makes sense for there to be a general progression to the increase in guilt that the characters are experiencing. Each time that Morgan feels as if he can once again achieve normalcy, he is then faced with an even greater feeling of guilt then before. Morgan is Adam, he feels ropped into the mischief by Eve/Remy and now has been kicked out of paradise/childhood and can never go back and begins to resent her for it.
Remy’s Guilt is probably the most interesting factor of the story. Morgan’s guilt is very obvious from start to finish. Remy on the other hand starts off her journey of guilt with fear, as do most of us. Fear of the authorities coming and arresting her. In contrast with Morgan’s guilt, Remy’s guilt is rooted in selfishness. She is worried about what would happen to her and not wanting to be caught. At first she does not care about the deceased woman and just wants to not get caught. Remy was growing up extremely fast now being thrust into a terrible mistake and having to decide what she must do with this guilt. As the book progresses her guilt becomes sorrow and she truly feels horrible for her carelessness causing the death of a life.
Remy did not know where she was going, but one thing for sure. She was going there fast (3).
As Maddie stated perfectly: “Remy and Morgan took on the freedom that comes with the driver’s license but didn’t realize that they now were responsible not only for their own lives but for the lives of everyone else they encounter on the road. Including Denise Thompson, the woman who died when they took the stop sign. Having this life on their hands made them aware of the of the responsibility that comes with freedom. They now lost the naivety of adolescence and saw the truth of adulthood.”
The cultural code here is what guilt can do to a person. I find it interesting that religion plays heavy in Remy’s story arc because in the Christian faith many believe that guilt is the soul telling oneself that their work is not yet finished so therefore something needs to be done. She needed to confess her sin and make things right. She does not learn this till the end because of how terrifying her punishment could be that she has not wrapped her mind around the gravity of another life being gone because of her.
Value Graph:
Title: Driver’s Ed
Premise: What happens when you do something wrong and either have to admit it, claim responsibility or never speak up.
Controlling Value: Purpose: When you confess your crime you are free from guilt but punished by society.
Controlling Value: Context: The crime causes a person raised on “good” morals to feel guilt and inner suffering.
Opposing Value: Purpose: With no punishment, one can do whatever they want and live with no rules or guilt.
Opposing Value: Context: When not confessing the crime, you are free from societal punishment and have to live with the guilt.
The story ends with Remy finally admitting what she had done and taking responsibility for her actions with Morgan at her side. Remy and her mother become distant and the teenagers are given charges for the accident but nothing too serious that would ruin their future lives. Remy embraces her mother in their church crying the her mother holds her close as the story ends. This is a touching, yet didactic tale for young adults of a suburban living. They are all good kids, of course they are. If these were bad kids in the inner city they would be sent to jail or suffered a worse punishment and the book would be gloomy and maybe scary. Instead Cooney goes for a safe route to tell a story of good kids in middle class living making a mistake that COULD ruin their future, but not really.
As Liam said: “In submitting to this text specifically, I was forced to create a new readerly role for myself. Young adult fiction is unique in this way – everyone who is an adult has at some point been an adolescent. For this reason, assuming the role of the authorial audience is something that almost any reader is capable of, given that he or she recalls the values possessed by his or her younger self…. ….But although creating this new role is vital to the understanding of this book, submitting to a work of young adult fiction is not always as easy as it sounds. Because we have had continued practice with critical reading on more challenging novels, assuming the role of a much more inexperienced reader proved to be an ongoing challenge, but a valuable one nonetheless.”
I referenced so much of Liam’s text her because it was the exact opposite of how I felt reading this story. Liam explained it perfectly how he had to become a capable reader in order to read this young adult story. For some reason I was very submissive upon reading this story and felt right back in sophomore year of high school with my friends learning to drive and making mistakes and feeling that fear of being caught. The narrative did what all good stories are supposed to do, make me wonder what I would do in that situation. I felt that beginning want and need for freedom, I remember it. Despising being stuck in a house when the world drove around. I felt that feeling of fear when a car related accident occurred. No stop signs or dead women, but two car accidents in my life time almost taking my life and escaping luckily. That feeling right in the gut that Remy or Morgan felt. How simple or easy the book was to read with the text did not matter to me. Stories like Harry Potter are simple reads with the most genius story happening in the background.
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