Power and Control

Throughout the entirety of the novel, the author uses Clare’s list of activities as an extended metaphor for power and control. At the start of Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between, Clare finds herself on the proverbial threshold between her past and her future. Because she is on the verge of leaving her hometown in her Chicago suburbs to attend Dartmouth in New Hampshire, Clare feels that her last night with Aidan is “not a beginning at all,” but “an ending” (3). She knows that she and Aidan have chosen their own paths. However, this knowledge does not keep Clare from feeling unmoored and ungrounded. In Stop 1, “The High School,” the narrator explains that Clare “woke up in a panic about how many goodbyes she still had to say” (5). One frantic emotion leads to another, and Clare finds herself making the list as a...