This article contains spoilers for the novel After.
Books have an array of serious topics that they discuss about in the stories that they tell. Normally, they would give information about the issue and spread awareness instead of glorifying it. Writing on serious topics like abusive relationships or families, suicide, and racism have been written into fictional books forever, but typically the author would write it in respectively.
After is a fictional novel written by Anna Todd. The book started out as a Harry Styles fanfiction. It got published into print sometime in 2014 after it became a hit on the website Wattpad. To summarize: it’s about a sweet girl named Tessa that meets a bad boy named Hardin. They fall in love, with complications along the way.
To say that Hardin is an abusive boyfriend in the novel is an understatement. He won’t talk to her, gets angry with her when she talks to her male friends, and always becomes affectionate after, as if he didn’t do that. He threatened to burn the house down while she was in it, but excused this behavior by his messed up childhood. He humiliated her by making a bet with people that involved messing with her feelings about him and lying that he wanted to be with her before they actually got together. There were times that he almost hit her and made her feel scared of him.
These instances should be a potential learning moment for the reader and show the progression of her doing what is healthy for her, maybe even having his character develop and learn from his mistake of letting out his repressed emotions on her, but instead it progressed into Tessa making excuses for him and reasons to stay with him. The book shows his possessive actions as if it’s attractive to have a man act that way.
A lot of arguments that I have been given from After fans about Hardin’s abusive behavior is that “he doesn’t know any better” and “he had a bad childhood that made him this way.” Those arguments are the same arguments given from society to excuse the behavior of abusers. He should know better—that’s the issue. Yes, he may have had a childhood that made him the messed up, mysterious person he is, but that will not and cannot excuse his behavior towards someone he “loves.” He is not a child that doesn’t quite grasp the idea of morals and not being aggressive to the people he claims to love; he is a grown adult. Hardin is written as 24 years old. The claim “he doesn’t know any better” shouldn’t even be said considering at the age of 24 years old, you are an adult that should know these kinds of things.
A survivor of an emotionally and/or physically abusive relationship could see this as a trigger. Seeing something traumatic that has happened to them be written as something to be seen as attractive in a significant other probably feels terrible.
Even if this is fiction, that doesn’t excuse the impression it can make on young minds. I have been told by people that they are nervous to say “I love you too” because of a scene in the book where Tessa says that and Hardin tells her she shouldn’t because it seems like she’s agreeing that he loves her. These people were 13 at the time of reading this once fanfiction. They were young and impressionable, and definitely gullible enough to believe what an abusive man thought about the words coming out of a woman’s mouth.
This behavior is written in plenty of books and movies: a man being overly protective and aggressive toward the woman he is with. It is typical for this to be seen as attractive due to the the book or movie portrays it. After takes the cake for this. If you want to write about abuse in any relationship, make sure you don’t come off as making it attractive, and give insight to what abuse in relationships is actually like.