After The First Death

As the book’s title suggests, multiple characters die throughout After the First Death. The book’s title is an allusion to a line in a Dylan Thomas poem (please see the Paired Resource in During Reading, Part 3); the title relays that more than one death will occur and suggests that deaths will occur in a domino effect for the characters in the book.

Considering plot and character details in the novel, whose is “the first death”? How do the factors surrounding the first death come to represent flaws and traits in the characters and in the ways in which the plot develops? Reflect upon the deeper levels of meaning that can be found in the book’s title. How does it contribute to the book’s key themes?

Teaching Suggestion: The “first death” in the book is supposed to be the bus driver’s, but due to chance, it is one of the children on the bus who dies as a result of the hijacker’s tranquilizers. Because it is a child, this “first death” immediately characterizes Artkin and his team as monsters; rather than mourn for the loss of innocent life, Artkin uses the child’s death to show that the hijackers don’t value life.