Four Sides to Every Story - Russell Banks' 'The Sweet Hereafter'

Russell Banks' The Sweet Hereafter presents us with four views of the same incident, each from the distinct perspective of someone whose life has been affected by the tragedy. By showing us the tragic bus accident, and its repercussions, through the eyes of these people, Russell Banks illustrates perfectly that there are at least two sides to every story, and often many more. Billy Ansel has lost his beloved twins, who are his entire world since the death of his wife, in the accident. Mitchell Stevens, Esquire is very familiar with losing a child, and he wants to use his abilities as a lawyer to help the people of Sam Dent ensure something like this will never happen again. Nichole Burnell, the high school overachiever, beautiful and intelligent, has seen the accident first hand, from the front row of the bus as it plummeted into the sand pit, paralyzing her and leaving her confined to a wheelchair. And then there is Dolores Driscoll, the bus driver who caused all of this in the first place, swerving her bus, full of the town's children, all of the town's children, into an icy sand pit to avoid what she thought was a dog. If there is a main character in this book it is surely Dolores, for without her Sam Dent would be just another town in upstate New York, and we never would have met Billy or Nichole, Mitchell Stevens or Risa Walker. Dolores Driscoll creates this story through her actions, and it is the repercussions of these actions which form the entirety of The Sweet Hereafter.

"A dog-it was a dog I saw for certain. Or thought I saw. It was snowing pretty hard by then, and you can see things in the snow that aren't there, so that by God when you do see something, you react anyhow" (1). Dolores opens the book with this reflection, telling us what caused her to swerve the bus off the road. Dolores doesn't know if it was really a dog, or "the ghost of a dog" (1), or a "tiny deer", or simply an outright "optical illusion" (2). She doesn't know what she reacted to, but it really doesn't matter, she simply reacted as she felt she was supposed to. "I saw the blur clearly, that's what I mean to say, and that's what I reacted to." (2) Dolores was following her instincts, honed over years and years of driving the children of Sam Dent to and from school every day, and in the end it really didn't matter what it was that she saw, for whether it was a dog or a deer or a ghost, the accident happened all the same.

In discussing Dolores as a victim, we must remember to use this word carefully, as it can be applied in numerous ways with varying degrees of accuracy or severity; the inherent broadness of the term necessitates a finer, more specific, definition. For the purposes of this paper I would like to define a victim as someone who has suffered due to the direct, purposeful actions of another, with emphasis on the word purposeful. This is what really separates Dolores from the others in terms of being a victim, as all the characters can be characterized as victims in one way or another, but it is Dolores who essentially assumes all of the blame for the accident. Billy Ansel and Nichole Burnell, as tragic as their respective losses are, are essentially victimized by cruel fate alone, not by anyone purposefully doing them harm ( I am speaking only of the accident here, and not of Nichole's molestation ), and so they do not fit my definition as true victims here. Their pain is the result of random chance, as we are never given any information that would lead us to believe this accident resulted from Dolores' direct negligence, i.e. that she was drunk, distracted, or otherwise behaving erratically that morning. Mitchell Stevens likes to think of himself as a victim, and assume this role on behalf of aggrieved parents whom he represents, and while with all of Zoey's troubles ultimately falling into his lap, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for the man, he really is not a victim under my definition. Mitchell is more a frustrated parent, with very good reason, than a victim. Billy, Nichole, and Mitchell may be victims in a very broad sense, in that anyone in any sort of pain can point to what they believe to be the cause and consider themselves victimized by it, but it is Dolores who is the true victim here. Because of Nichole's spite toward her molesting father and oblivious mother, Dolores is made to assume the blame for the accident.

"Dolores was driving too fast, and it scared me" (213), Nichole tells Mr. Schwartz during her deposition, a statement that we are led to believe is false. "I know she was going seventy-two" (213), she tells Mr. Schwartz, thereby throwing any chance of a negligence lawsuit out the window. Nichole despises both of her parents, and, now that she knows she is basically beyond reproach after the accident, she knows just how to get back at them for the abuse she has suffered. By testifying that Dolores was driving too fast, Nichole ruins any chance of a settlement which would result in financial gain for her parents, as well as for any other parents whose children were in the bus that morning. As intelligent as she is, especially for a 14 year-old, Nichole must realize the ramifications of what she is saying. She knows she wants to stop the suit, she knows just what to say in order to do this, and so she surely must know it is Dolores will take the fall for her lie. Dolores is now the victim of Nichole's hatred toward her parents, and it is her who assumes all of the blame for the crash in the eyes of the town. Dolores killed the children of Sam Dent with her own negligence, driving much too fast on a snow-covered country road, and that is all there is to it. A very important theme here is that of blame, and of the need to assign blame when one has suffered. Dolores assumes all of the blame here, and, for better or worse, this gives the town a sort of closure in knowing exactly what, or who, killed their children. After escaping this horrible accident, in which so many others were killed, Dolores finally falls victim in the end to the spite of a teenage girl.