Interconnectedness is a very big part of our lives, and I chose it because it is very prominent in Whirligig. Interconnectedness is all about how our actions reach out very far, beyond their original intent, causing a sort of ripple. The interconnected actions usually have a theme too, like if you were to do something kind, the actions it would cause would most likely be more kind ones, whereas if you did something unkind, it would most likely cause unkind actions.

In Whirligig, interconnectedness is one of many themes and probably the biggest and the one most focused on, and so we can relate it lots to our own lives. In Whirligig, all of the happenings at the party (Chaz making fun of him, Brent drinking alcohol, Brianna rejecting Brent) all led up to Brent’s decision to drive home and attempt to kill himself. This leads to killing Lea, which causes Brent to have to meet her parents. They send him on a mission across the country, and it spreads the interconnectedness further. He builds whirligigs in different cities, and each has an impact on a different person, causing different events and different changes. Brent begins to believe that all of these people he’s affecting and that affected him are all very interconnected, in what’s called a karass, a group of people who do not choose each other but all are very connected and play important parts in each other’s lives. He meets some people who he believes are in his karass, including the girl he killed, Lea.

This connects to real life, as before, because our actions in real life stem out and cause ripples. Like Brent killing Lea, which causes his whirligigs to change lives, all of us in real life unknowingly affect other lives. Interconnectedness is the main theme of the book, and is a big part of life, which connects life to the book quite a lot.