Essay Questions

What is the significance of Hayley's red hoodie?

On the face of it, if one is trying to go in and out of somewhere unseen, red might not be the smartest color choice when it comes to one's apparel. It stands out. It highlights a person's presence. It's even a bit of a challenge. It seems that almost any other color would have been a better selection for a teenage vigilante trying to make a run for it unnoticed.

Except that Hayley sees her bright red hoodie as a sort of uniform. It is similar to the bright primary colored outfits worn by comic book superheroes. It is her mask and shield, in a way, or the sash with her super-hero name emblazoned on it. The red hoodie is Hayley's uniform, and when she wears it she knows that she is going to dispense justice.

Hayley manages to break Jeff down psychologically. What are some of the ways in which she does this?

Jeff believes himself intellectually superior to Hayley. He cannot conceive of a world in which he is not smarter than a fourteen year old girl, which is part of the reason Hayley manages to outwit him quite so masterfully. Hayley is meticulous in her research and she also understands the type of person she is dealing with in Jeff, making it much harder for him to manipulate. This is a psychological torture for Jeff whose only method of interaction with people is manipulation. In this way, Hayley takes away his primary weapon.

Hayley also begins the psychological torture process early in their encounter by numbing his genitals so that he cannot feel them. This means that he does not know if she has castrated him or not. The feeling that this is something she is capable of is enormously psychologically terrifying because he knows that she will stop at nothing; conversely, she has not castrated him, knowing that the thought of her doing so will torment him just as much.

The most efficient way of breaking Jeff down psychologically is taking away his bargaining chip. Believing he can trade his information for his life, Jeff comes to learn that Hayley already knows who his partner in crime was. That is how she found him, and she got this information before his co-conspirator killed himself. This tells Jeff that she has already driven his partner to suicide. This is psychologically damaging to Jeff and is the moment when he finally gives in and sees he has no other options.