Life after High School Joyce Carol Oates Summary

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“Life after High School”Zachary’s suicide and its Effect on Sunny
High school is often regarded as the most important stage in life of young school- going adults. It is here that a person makes or breaks their lives. It has been evident over the years that most of the decisions that a person make while in high school have a great impact later in their lives. In Joyce Carol Oates “Life after School”, such is the case. The book takes the reader back into the 1950’s to a South Lebanon High School, which is the school of three of the main characters: Zachary Graff, Barbara “Sunny” Burhman and Tobias Shank.
What really happens after school. Can it be discussed in the affirmative that what a person does during high school has an impact to what happens to them after school. The paper will look into the developments in the story and how they contributed to what happened to Zachary after school. In particular, the plots of the story chosen for this paper will show how the decisions a person makes in school have a huge brunt on what life they will lead afterwards. It will show how a friendship based on secrecy can brew trouble if not handled properly by the parties (Oates 40).  Zachary from the onset of the story can be described just as a young nerdy lad who was not that noticeable by his fellow students. He had all the characteristics of the student that is described as weird and is generally feared by his peers –basically mere stereotyping- because they have no idea what he is capable of doing. He had huge plastic glasses that he kept pushing up his nose. However he had a car which made him the envy of many (in fact people wondered why he of all people had to own a car). He was a Christian, and was the president and an active member of some of the school clubs. For a person who was not popular in school, he pretty much had his life cut for him. On the other hand, Sunny was very different, she had the most radiant and astonishing smile; in fact her teacher nicknamed her Sunny just because of this. She was a member of the newspaper, magazine and honor society that Zachary was a member. She was a fully devoted Christian and she engaged herself volunteer work. The fact that Zachary and Sunny met in most of these places made him very fond of her, and eventually he developed feelings for her. Zachary had a friend, Tobias Shank, with whom he shared most of his deep sec...