On My Honor

Tony and Joel’s lifelong friendship is the foundation for this story. They are foils to each other, the strong differences in their personalities balancing each other but also leading to conflict. While Joel is serious and cautious, Tony gets a thrill out of dangerous situations. Despite their contrasting personalities and different interests, they have a foundation that runs deep, going back to their infancies. While Joel and Tony are seemingly very different, they have far more in common deep down than meets the eye. They are quite similar in the brotherly love they have for each other, their loyalty to their families and unwillingness to back down from a fight, and their sense of humor. They were born within a week of each other and have known each other since before either of them remembers, and Joel thinks that they “could be twins…the kind that didn’t have to look alike or be alike either” (14). However, Joel sometimes wonders why he is friends with Tony, particularly when Tony is insisting on a risky adventure. He ultimately loves Tony like a brother and wishes he could trade “Bobby-the-Whiner” (14), his real brother, for Tony.

As they are growing up, their friendship dynamic is becoming more fraught under the pressures of adolescence. The difficulties of adolescence form a backdrop against which their friendship is developing. They are highly concerned about appearing scared or weak in any way. Tony’s internal monologue is never revealed, but his actions give a clue that he is worried about Joel’s impression of him. He doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t know how to swim and instead orchestrates a scenario in which Joel can teach him how without anyone seeing. They are about to enter junior high, and Tony seems worried about how he will fit in, hence his concerns over building up the “muscles in [his] legs” (8). Both boys are careful to avoid appearing babyish. Tony is particularly frightened of the unknown that awaits him in the future. He is scared that this transformative process will lead to them losing each other and fears that he is not prepared for the future, hence his goal of making “the swim team next year in junior high” (21).

There is a subtle Biblical allusion to the story of Cain and Abel, a story of two brothers. Cain resents Abel because he perceives Abel as the favored son, and he ends up killing him. While Joel does not kill Tony, the hostilities that they express toward each other right before the race give a clue to the dynamics of jealousy at play in their friendship. When Tony makes fun of Joel’s dad, Joel thinks, “What right did Tony have to make fun of his father?” (21). Tony may in fact be jealous of Joel’s loving and gentle father in contrast with his temperamental father, whom Joel has seen “take off after Tony once, snaking his belt through the loops with one hand” (22). Joel’s comment about Mr. Zabrinsky hitting Tony with a belt upsets Tony so much that he takes “a wide swing at the side of Joel’s head” (22). The angry words that they exchange play a part in the events that lead to Tony’s drowning. Tony feels the need to defend his honor and accepts Joel’s dare to do something that he knows he cannot do. Their fragile egos, envy, and sensitivity cause them to argue, and Joel harbors regret for this argument after Tony drowns.

This surprising friendship runs far deeper than the chance occurrence of these two boys being neighbors. The way the author depicts their relationship in its full complexity demonstrates what connects humans: shared values, trust, and history. Joel and Tony, for all their differences, value their families and their honor. Joel begins to come to terms with the loss of his best friend, but the author does not suggest that anyone could grieve such a loss in a few hours. Instead, she leaves the ending open, giving Joel a chance to continuing grieving the loss of this deep friendship that has grounded his existence for so long.

The author explores the relationship between honor and deception through Joel’s character development. Joel is plagued by the word “honor.” He equates his honor with his value, so when he behaves dishonorably by breaking a promise, he is overcome with regret. The relationship between Joel and his father is built on a foundation of trust, so Joel feels guilty not only because he has broken his own moral code, but also because he has broken his father’s trust. He fears his father will no longer view him as honorable once he learns the truth about what happened at the river, and he thinks that “he couldn’t go back” home (47).

Deception is significant to the narrative as well, and the story emphasizes that what the characters have kept from each other is just as powerful as what they know about one another. Joel attempts to deceive his father and Tony to get out of climbing the bluffs, and doing so has a snowballing effect as the lies grow. Joel forces himself to go along with Tony’s very ill-conceived idea. Tony deceives Joel’s father and his own mother by claiming that he had her permission to go to the state park. The teenage couple that helps Joel try to find Tony provides another illustration of how deception influences our decisions. The teenage girl lied about being sick to skip work and hang out with the teenage boy, which is why she doesn’t want to go to the police. This further lie deepens Joel’s crisis, as he must face his parents and the Zabrinskys alone now, so he in turn lies to the teens. Joel is in a state of despair when he contemplates the terrible consequences of these lies, sitting in his room and thinking he “wasn’t up here. He wasn’t anywhere” (53). Joel’s lies give birth to a deep guilt that leaves him without honor and thus without his spirit, his life.

Once Joel has told his father the truth, he is released from the cage of his dishonesty and can once again be honorable. He realizes that his father will not stop loving him because he lied when his father tells him that “we all made choices today, Joel. You, me, Tony. Tony’s the only one who doesn’t have to live with his choice” (88). Though he will never be the same as he was before Tony’s death, Joel has learned directly about how dishonesty begets further dishonesty. Honesty sets him free from his dishonor and restores his clear conscience. He is able to fully grieve his friend once he has told the truth.