Breakout

The first two days of documents in the novel establish the multi-media format and its purpose, along with the way it indirectly characterizes Nora, Lizzie, and Elidee through their writing. By centering the perspectives of young people, Kate Messner places implicit value on seeing the world through their eyes. Nora’s note that all documents must be included in the time capsule introduces the importance of multiple perspectives for understanding the full story, an idea the novel’s format reinforces. These initial documents outline the community dynamics of Wolf Creek as a small town where the mostly white residents all know one another and value the sense of safety this gives them; while being kind and welcoming is a virtual town motto, it is an insular community with long-held views and traditions, many of which lead to unconscious bias against anyone who is different. The swirl of rumors around Elidee’s arrival and her race emphasizes these dynamics and the theme of Racism, Bias, and Privilege, as Nora notes in a handwritten letter how her fellow students attempt to “figure out Elidee’s deal” (21) and are able to identify her mother in the main office because they know “it definitely wasn’t Paul Washington’s mom [the only other Black student]” (22).

The three girls are characterized early on by their attitudes toward these community dynamics, as well as by the formats they use to express themselves. Nora most often writes letters and news articles addressed to “future Wolf Creek residents” in a sincere and formal voice that shows she cares deeply about things. She loves her sense of place, her family’s history in the town, and her father’s role as prison superintendent; in her reference to the facility as “Dad’s prison” (21), she unknowingly demonstrates her sense of ownership and privilege. However, she recognizes that her town holds little excitement in an ironically offhand comment Messner uses to foreshadow the novel’s plot: “I want to be a journalist who covers all the exciting breaking news stories. We don’t get many of those in Wolf Creek, unfortunately” (12). Lizzie, too, takes her place in the Wolf Creek community for granted though she looks at the town’s traditions with a more skeptical perspective, highlighted by the note atop her list of the top ten things to do in Wolf Creek: “(If you think I’m being sarcastic about some of these, you’re right)” (13). To match her more casual tone, Messner often uses short handwritten reflections, parodies, and visuals when depicting Lizzie’s perspective. Elidee’s early impressions of the town convey her hopes that she might get used to it but also her sense of isolation: “We live so far from everything now. […] When we left, [Grandmama] gave me a bag full of hair oil because she said stores here might not even sell it” (32). Her initial letters for the time capsule, where she addresses future residents as “you Wolf Creek people” (51) convey her biased impression of the town: She is not part of it and doesn’t want to be. After finishing her required five letters for the time capsule, Elidee addresses most of her letters to her brother, Troy, aligning herself with him on the other side of the prison wall, because she feels her story is not the community’s story. Through Elidee’s text messages with her mother and the poems she writes, the opening sections further develop Elidee’s closeness to her family and social distance from Wolf Creek.

Nora and Elidee’s responses to the books and poems they read also introduce The Media’s Role in Shaping Perception, demonstrating the importance of representation in literature. Nora’s fascination with a book about the famous prisoner escape from Alcatraz highlights her interest in journalism, foreshadows her investigation of the inmates’ escape, and shows how recognizing similarities with literary figures can connect people to what they read. She can relate to the prison superintendent’s daughter “because my dad’s always busy at Wolf Creek Correctional Facility, just like her dad is always busy at Alcatraz with Al Capone and everybody” (11). Similarly, Elidee determines to seek out authors who speak in a voice and from experiences more similar to hers after her new teacher recommends the Imagist poem “The Red Wheelbarrow.” After the poem’s rural imagery prompts her to wonder if wheelbarrows are “a thing” in Wolf Creek, Elidee writes that she is “definitely no William Carlos Williams. [… H]e was a grumpy-looking old white guy” (28). Though she later uses the format of his poem to explore her own initial impressions of the town, his word choice and subject matter hold little appeal compared to the lyrics of Hamilton, which she tells Troy is about things that “could be happening in our old neighborhood right now” (54).

Finally, the opening sections uses juxtaposition to begin developing the theme of Young People’s Ability to Confront Social Issues. The sleepy routines of the day before the inmates’ escape and the jolt the town experiences one day after are illustrated by Lizzie’s pie charts—a parodic survey of what hot dogs to serve at the Fourth of July Cookout—contrasted with a serious exploration of the demographics of the prison. When the visual helps spark a discussion of the prison and criminal justice, Sean’s perspective offers context on the relationship between crime rates, poverty, and systemic racism, concluding that “Lizzie’s chart is proof we need criminal justice reform” (78). Sean’s commentary about how people’s implicit biases contribute to injustice is emphasized by the immediate characterization of the escapees as villains by the news media and by Owen. By casting Owen as the wizard Harry Potter and the inmates as his archenemy Voldemort, this section establishes the inmates as the antagonists of the novel and the town’s perception of anyone seeking them as heroic, highlighting The Fear of Otherness. The tensions underlying the perception of otherness as evil and the use of various formats to reveal the characters’ shifting views develop the primary conflicts in the novel.