OConnell 1

Jessi OConnell
English 114B
Professor J. Rodrick
25 April 2016
Raging Fires
The age old war between free will and destiny has been a common theme, as well as a
cold war, between humanity, amongst the humans inhabiting the planet earth. Fate has always
been a tricky topic that has been thought about for decades upon decades, haunting the living on
whether or not the lives in which the world contains is controlled by them or controlled by a
greater force that seems to escape the minds of simple beings. Through the book Every Day by
David Levithan, the main character is a bodiless, and genderless, soul who inhabits a different
body every 24 hours only once. The main character, A, endures through many trails and triumphs
that force A to question the role of destiny and the role of free will. Through As struggles, the
young soul fights to find out about the beauty of free will through falling in love with a human,
abandoning all rules and order, and relishing in chaos caused by irrational, split-second
decisions. Yet through it all, love is seen as the dominant source of free will through As brief life
shown through Levithans book; love is an all-consuming, raging fire that never ceases to burn.
According to Kerri Smith, author of Neuroscience vs. philosophy: Taking aim at free
will, she writes about how free will is a matter of the mind. As humans, we like to think that
our decisions are under our conscious control that we have free will, (Smith, pg.1). Free will
is, to A, a matter of the mind, as well as a matter of the heart. In the book, love is seen as matter
of free will with A, and is a huge trial for the soul as A finds entanglements with a girl named
Rhiannon. A met her while inhabiting her ex-boyfriend, Justin, while A was a 16 year old soul in
Annapolis, Maryland. Before Rhiannon, A used to live a life full of rules, containment, and order.
Yet, just like love usually does, it came into As world and ruined lines that were once black and

OConnell 2
white and blurred them grey. In Levithans book, A
thought of love as the following when lying down
next to Rhiannon on the beach: Its one thing to fall
in love. Its another to feel someone else falling in
love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that
love, (Levithan, pg. 24). Love is this idea that is
double-sided; one can always give it, but to receive it is such a treasure that it must be kept safe
and secured; it must never be broken even though it is as fragile as glass.
Love has always been a tricky idea to the mind, but it tends to get even more messed up
when destiny and free will come into play. Some believe that love is destined, that the right
person is the soul mate and the two people were separated, and once they found each other they
never realized how they ever lived apart. Yet, in As experience, it was more likely free will, due
to the fact that A chose to be with Rhiannon despite the difficulties that having a relationship
with her would exhibit. Some days, A would wake up four hours away from Rhiannon, like on
day 5996; other days A would wake up 15 minutes away from Rhiannon, like on day 6007. One
day, day 6015 to be exact, possibly fate screwing with their love, tried to really throw a bump in
the road for the young lovebirds when A woke up in the body of Rhiannon. I wake up and Im
not four hours away from her, or one hour, or even fifteen minutes. / No, I wake up in her
house. / In her room. / In her body, (Levithan, pg. 188). Perhaps in this instance though, fate did
have a name and a face; the soul of David Levithan throwing his readers off from the path and
adding a detour.
Order is key to life, or so maybe thought A before Rhiannon entered with all of her
complications. Before Rhiannon, A would never disrupt a persons life, implant memories, or

OConnell 3
even start to remember past inhabitants from more than 48 hours previously to the moment A
was currently in. A tried not to forget who A was, no matter how insignificant it might seem or if
nobody even knew who A was; to the soul, order was key. Order can fall in line with free will as
well. It might not seem as common with free will, like maybe
spontaneity (even though A does act spontaneously throughout
the duration of the book, like when A and Rhiannon decided to
leave the world behind and go to the beach rather than stay at
school on [Levithan, pgs. 9-23]), but order is something that A
chose to do

with each body that A was in. A chose not to ruin any lives, but

then also disobeyed the rules that was set out by the soul alone when it came to Rhiannon, which
ties back into the whole love thing. Its hard being in the body of someone you dont like,
because you still have to respect itSo I try to be careful, (Levithan, pg. 2). One single slip up
could destroy the inhabitants life forever possibly.
Through order comes chaos, or perhaps through chaos comes order. In Levithans book,
Every Day, however, chaos was derived from the love that was sprung from too much order in
As life. From order came chaos, and through this chaos free will was found. As Dr. Normand
Holland wrote in This is Your Brain on Culture, there is no stability in life. Reality is
continuously changing, and its changes perturb our mental functioning which is also
continuously changing, (Holland, par. 8). Life never stops, it is ever-changing and continuously
moves on without halting, just like time. Through this book, As life evolves and adapts and
eventually the soul finds itself entangled in chaos; stranded far away from the order it once used
to live in.

OConnell 4
The form of chaos that was predominantly seen throughout the book was the scandal with
the characters Nathan and Reverend Poole. Nathan was a boy A had inhabited and took control
with serious measures. A drove an hour and a half in Nathans body to get to a party to see
Rhiannon for a few hours. Through this dangerous task, A could not get back to Nathans home
before midnight and ended up pulling over on the side of the road to safely depart from Nathans
body. When Nathan was woken up by police officers asking if he was drunk, he swore he was
possessed by the devil, but not just any devil spirit; this devil was the actual angel who was
thrown out of heaven, the Morningstar Lucifer devil.
Through this fiasco being blown out of proportion, and through Nathans own choice
which was free will Reverend Poole got sucked into the chaos as well. The reverends part in
this was the fact that he also was a bodiless, genderless soul like A, but the difference was that
Reverend Pooles invader could inhabit beings for more than 24 hours at a time. It freaked out A
and forced the young soul to be think of a decision with free will; A could either provoke more
chaos into the world, or run from the chaos and destruction that is being dragged out among the
humans unwillingly and unknowingly. Reverend Poole stated, on day 6028, You have no idea
the power you possess, (Levithan, pg. 289). A, and others like A, have so much control within
their bodiless selves, the damage that could be done by them is unsurmountable and
unimaginable.
Though all is fair in love and war, or as Francis Edmund Smedley wrote it originally, the
rules of fair play do not apply in love and war (Lyly, pg. 24), free will and destiny have always
been one for the books. It is a classic theme, and is a war that has no end. In David Levithans
book Every Day, the main character, or soul, A, proves that every day is worth fighting for a love
that seems impossible to maintain consistently, the destruction of order, and the provoking of

OConnell 5
chaos in daily lives. There is always a choice
to be made with a voice who decides it all, and
that is what David Levithan gave to A: the
freedom to choose its own path. Sometimes all
it takes for person, or a soul, to step away from the marked path is to fall in love; a love so
consuming and intriguing that it takes everything away except for the thought of keeping that
love alive, a fire that continuously burns through the darkest and coldest nights.

Works Cited
"Department of Computer Science - College of Arts and Sciences." Department of Computer
Science - College of Arts and Sciences. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.cs.miami.edu/>.
(Multimodal Source)
"Forever Fatimah." Forever Fatimah. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<http://foreverfatty.blogspot.com/>.
(Multimodal Source)

OConnell 6
"Get Motivated." QuotesGram. in the Pursuit of Happiness. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<http://quotesgram.com/>.
(Multimodal Source)
Holland, Norman N., PhD. "This Is Your Brain on Culture." Psychology Today. Sussex
Publishers, LLC, 31 Aug. 2010. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/is-your-brain-culture/201008/how-you-arewho-you-are-in-chaos->.
Levithan, David. Every Day. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Kindle.
Lyly, John, Morris W. Croll, and Harry Clemons. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit: Euphues & His
England. New York: Russell & Russell, 1964. Print.
Smith, Kerri. "Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will." Nature 477.7362 (2011):2325. Web.