Social Hierarchy has existed for decades. The societal construct based hierarchy places people into categories defined by their financial standing across a scale, ranging from upper class down to the poverty level. The upper and lower class are often segregated, living in different parts of town and having different experiences due to the opposite lifestyles that they live. In Nicholas Sparks’s novel, The Best of Me, Dawson Cole, a boy from an unprosperous, criminal family meets Amanda Collier, a wealthy, robust girl from Pamlico County, in Oriental. Their relationship is prosperous, but due to their different aspirations the relationship takes a misfortunate turn. Later in life the two individuals are reunited, and both learn how the stereotypes of their social class can impact them negatively. Major roadblocks that they must overcome begin with objection from Amanda’s parents. The Colliers disapprove because Dawson is of a lower social class than Amanda, hence he is unworthy of her. Secondly, the dilemma that Dawson is faced with when their conflicting plans for their future clash. In Kasie West’s novel The Distance Between Us an oppositional view is portrayed. The lower class family does not like the wealthy because they judge them as obnoxious and selfish (254). The novel tells the story Caymen, a teenage girl helping her mom run a failing porcelain doll shop that is drowning in debt and Xander, the son of a successful hotel franchise owner. In their journey of a relationship they face dire struggles. They must overcome they opposing opinion that Caymen’s mother forces and the internal battle that Caymen struggles with as she feels like she is going against her morals and values by dating Xander. Both relationships must endure a lot of obstruction including rebellion, objection and identity crisis. Though, all relationships face conflict, being of opposite social standing makes it nearly impossible to maintain a healthy relationship.
In The Best of Me Dawson and Amanda meet in high school, when they get paired up for a chemistry assignment. They went to school together for years, but never exchanged much of a conversation until Junior year (Sparks 16). Amanda Collier was popular and came from a prestigious family. They are the opposite of Dawson’s family who reside in a trailer park. His mother left when he was young, leaving Dawson with his abusive father and cousins. His family is known for many treacherous acts (10). Dawson decides to run away and hide in his Neighbor Tuck’s garage where he works fixing cars. Tuck is a very significant person in Dawson’s life. He states “Tuck had become the most important person in his life, and Dawson couldn't imagine anything that would change that. Until the day Amanda Collier entered his world.” (16). This shows how very important Amanda is to Dawson. He values her among anyone else in his life and their social standing did not influence how they viewed each other at all in the beginning of their relationship. The only thing that affected the relationship was the fact that Amanda was off to University and Dawson did not want to hold her back from reaching her full potential.
As for its counterpart, The Distance Between Us. Caymen meets Xander while working in the family doll store trying to sell him a doll for his grandmother. When he walks in, she immediately makes a judgements about him. She thinks to herself, “The untrained eye might not pick up on the richness oozing off this guy, but I know rich and he reeks of it” (West 2). She also assumes that he has had “a lifetime of privilege”(3). Caymen has never met this boy prior and knows nothing about him, in fact she refers to him as “ Mr. Rich” (2). Overtime, Xander continuously returns to the doll store bringing treats like hot chocolate and walks her to school in the mornings to get to know her. Throughout the process of Xander trying to get to know her, Caymen pushes him away because she wants nothing to do with a rich guy. She makes snarky remarks to him trying to drive him away. While she is hanging out with her best friend she starts to make fun of him when he comes in for a visit “Another day where mingling with commoners helps you appreciate your life more?”He is offended, but again returns another day to try to win her over.
The relationship between Dawson and Amanda is something that both of them want, and are willing to fight for. Dawson really exaggerates the saying “If you love somebody, set them free” by Richard Bach. Their relationship ends only because Dawson loves her enough to let her go to live her life. Caymen does not want to be with Xander because she is afraid of many problems that will arise if she is with him. She fears that he is judging her and she does not want to go against her mom’s wishes. She even tries to force herself to be in a relationship with a boy named Mason. He is in an uncouth garageband and falls in the lower class. This in turn portrays him as a more compatible bachelor for Caymen. This is not practical, because she loves Xander. Caymen’s mother dislikes all people of the upper class because her wealthy, ex abandoned them and moved to New York City. Caymen’s mother has left her with this ideology that all rich people are bad and are only looking out for themselves, when in reality Xander really cares about Caymen. The problem is not that she hates Xander. She is afraid of the life that he leads. In a conversation between the two about their fears, Xander asks, “ Is there anything you’re afraid of?” which she in turn thinks, “You”(West 117). Caymen is fearful of what Xander stands for; the money, the power, all of it is a foreign concept to Caymen.
One of the biggest obstacles standing in Amanda and Dawson’s way is their parents. Amanda’s parents, the Colliers are wealthy and know very well who the Cole family is, as does everyone else in the small town of Pamlico. They are the kind of people that you avoid, so of course when they discover that Amanda is fraternizing with Dawson Cole they are concerned. Their concerns do not consider Amanda’s feelings because Dawson and Amanda are happy together. Amanda’s mother begged her to break up with Dawson and her father stopped talking to her (Sparks 19). Dawson believed that “everything and everyone seemed stacked against them”(19). Truly the odds of the relationship working at the time are not the best. The constant fight in the Collier family home regarding the relationship began to drive Amanda closer to Dawson and It caused her heartbreak. While Dawson loves her a lot he hates to see her go through this. Due to the fact that Amanda’s parents are so concerned about their relationship “he gently suggested that it might be better for her if they stopped seeing each other.” (19) Dawson does not want their relationship to end, but he can see that Amanda’s parents are not going to back off. Dawson is aware that her parents dislike him. Most people in Pamlico county do, but the Colliers have a specific dislike to him because he is lower class. Mr Collier even calls Dawson “a worthless piece of white trash” (18). The Colliers look down on him because if people were to see a Collier dating a Cole, it could ruin their reputation, which is something especially important to people in the upper class. After continuing the relationship a bit longer, Amanda’s parents put their foot down and tell her that if she is going to continue her relationship with Dawson they are going to kick her out of the house and they will not pay for University. She considers this and decides to stay with him, but Dawson is not as naive as Amanda. They begin discussing how it would work out for them to move in together and Dawson realizes that he needs to breakup with her or she will not go to school and everything between Amanda and her parents will be ruined. If Amanda’s parents were okay with the relationship, they would have stayed together. Even though Amanda is soon off to university. They planned to call and visit every so often, but with the burden of Amanda’s parents their relationship is nearly unattainable to maintain.
Not only are the odds against the relationship, but Dawson has his own set of dilemmas. He is unable to go off to University even though he is very smart. His father used to beat him for having good grades because it made him look like he thought he was better than the Coles. His father seems to be insecure with himself because of how he lashes out every time he sees him being successful. Mr. Cole wants to belittle Dawson down to make himself look stronger. Dawson can see past this and knows his father is weak, but that does not help the fact that he is very low on money and if he left, his father and cousins would probably come after him. There is no way Dawson is leaving Pamlico County and he thinks that there is more out in the world for her. Dawson is living in Tuck’s garage and fixing cars for money, buying only the necessities until his father and cousins, Ted and Abee, show up at the garage demanding money from him. This is a battle that Dawson loses. His father returns weekly for the money and Dawson feels like he is conformed to a life of being a poor failure who does not deserve Amanda. Between his neglectful father, and Amanda’s parents disapproving of him, he is beginning to believe that he is “a worthless piece of white trash” (18) like Amanda’s father called him. Dawson is well aware of the fact that society dislikes him because of his family which just makes him loathe them more.
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In The distance between us, Caymen’s mother has a vendetta against the upper class because her ex husband was rich and she is stereotypical to people of the upper class to arrogant and self-centered. Because Caymen is well aware of her mother’s hate towards rich people, she is afraid to even tell her mother about her relationship. This puts a strain on her relationship with her mother as well because they are close and tell eachother everything. When Caymen finally tells her mother about the relationship, her mom does not react well. Her mother, Susan is trying to protect her from the pain that she suffered when her rich, husband left because she still feels hurt and used. She means well but when Caymen tells her that she is in a relationship with Xander, she reacts by saying “That’s all you are to him though. Fun. Can’t you see that? You are just a little bit of excitement for him, Caymen, something different, until he’s ready to settle down for real... if you trust my judgement or care about my opinion at all, you won’t”(254). Caymen’s mom is passionate about her not being with Xander anymore and is nearly shaming her for dating him. This conversation escalated to Susan yelling “Your father never wanted to see you! That's my point Caymen. Don't you get that? He left us”(254). The fact that Sausan brings up Caymen’s father Proves how She is relating Caymen’s relationship with Xander to her old relationship. Caymen and her mother are angry and avoiding each other for a while which pushes her closer to Xander. further damaging her relationship with her mother. It is not healthy for Caymen to rely on Xander only because she is angry with her mother and is unsure of who else to turn to. This is a burden in Caymen and Xander’s way because she can not balance her relationship, when she is having family conflicts. Caymen really cares about her mother's opinion, but she does not want to stop seeing him. Caymen’s mother shaming her for dating a rich guy really takes a toll on Caymen’s confidence in the relationship, leaving her with conflicts throughout.
While Caymen struggles with the conflicts with her mom. She also struggles with society judging her for being poor. It leads to her making a ton of false assumptions and judgments about other people. It starts with Xander taking Caymen out for dinner with his friends. They enter the restaurant and are greeted by his friends. One of them says “You taking in strays now Xander?”(125). Caymen is very angered by this statement and goes home. This eventually leads to Caymen being angry with Xander for a while and they stops talking for a bit. She makes false assumptions such as that Xander is just using her to feel better about himself, like some kind of charity case. She goes through an internal conflict where she feels like she has to date Mason instead of Xander because he is in the same social class as her. She does not like Mason that much, he is not a gentleman and most importantly he is not Xander. She feels as if she can not date Xander because he is rich. Caymen believes that she is not good enough to date Xander to the point where it makes her insecure, while Caymen’s mom believes they are too good for rich people, like they are superior when really she is just full of envy because of how she was treated in the past ,even though it may be different for her daughter.
In comparison The best of me and The Distance between us have a common theme of parents rejecting their children’s significant other, but for opposite reasons. Dawson is not good enough for the Colliers because he is poor, while the Caymen’s mom dislikes Xander because he is rich. She just makes assumptions about him and his intentions such as “in a few weeks Xander will be done seeing how the other half lives” even though he really intends to be in a real relationship with her, so it is a bit obnoxious and judgmental of her to think that of him. Both of the poorer characters also suffer from their parents inadequate attitudes. For Dawson, he is suffering his father's drunken, abusive tendencies while Caymen suffers from her mother’s judgmental attitude and her mother keeping secrets from her in the time when their business is going bankrupt. They both struggle with the internal battle of not knowing if they should continue with the relationship because of the hurdles in their way. Both of them has the odds stacked against them and while Dawson and Amanda are always willing to work through their problems, whereas with Caymen and Xander if a rough patch hits she leaves and stays mad at him for a week while she deals with her conflicts alone, until eventually they get together again. From the beginning the odds were not in either relationships favors, but the struggles that the impecunious characters face make the relationship much more difficult to maintain.
After the time spent at Tuck’s cottage with Amanda, Dawson feels like everything is going perfect, it is just like the old times when they were teenagers, in love. They both sat there thinking “There was a moment, just a moment, when she was able to imagine a different life that might have been hers, the kind of life she knew the she’d always really wanted.” (140). They both realize how good they go together, but just when everything is going perfect, his past begins to sneak up on him. Dawson has successfully avoided his father and cousins for the past 20 years, but when he returned, he was found by Ted and Abee. They recognize him and still have it out to get it. Dawson walks into a restaurant and sees that chaos has broken loose, he is trying to help someone get out but as he is leaving he is shot by his cousin Ted. Amanda and Dawson are star crossed lovers. They are destined to not work and once again the odds are stacked against them.
Caymen faces the struggle of the doll store that is run by her and her mom in a large sum of financial trouble and her mom leaves her in the dark about their financial situation and family situations. In the end Caymen finds out that her mother's parents, Caymen’s grandparents are the richest people in California. Her mother hides the rich life from her, and any information about her father hidden from her. This leads to despair and frustration because Caymen did not think that her mother would lie to her, especially about such big things, but it makes her lose trust in her mother and causes her to be distraught. Even though her mother was only trying to protect her from the stress that it would have put on her if she had know all of those things. Caymen is also frustrated with how much responsibility she has at the doll store. She even says “for just one second I think of a life without the doll store. For that one second I feel free.”(43). The doll store is suppose to be passed on to her even though Caymen does not really want to run the doll store forever. With all of the combined stresses it makes it difficult for her to handle her relationship with Xander, as that is just another thing to worry about. Xander is also seen to have a problem similar to Caymans. His father expects him to run the family Hotel chain, but Xander has no desire to fulfil his father's wishes. This makes Caymen annoyed because he thinks they are the same when she thinks that she has went through more than he has because of her social status. “I want to tell him that if he thinks he has found some sort of connection with me through our similar situations he should think again.” She thinks to herself. Caymen does not see his issue to be similar to hers. She sees nearly all of his issues to be invalid because he is very rich. It is an unfair assumption for her to make as having a lot of money can often lead to problems on its own.
Throughout both novels it is a common occurance to see the lower class characters struggling emotionally throughout the relationship. Their main struggles were bittersweet, while Dawson finally finds the life that he has dreamed of for the past twenty years and is with Amanda, he is soon murdered, but his heart saves Amanda’s son who was in an accident. While Caymen discovers a ton of secrets that her mother had been hiding from her, but in the end her mother gives her permission to meet her father and she meets her grandparents. While this did cause them both confusion and pain it also gave them something that they had been desiring for so long.
In conclusion, The Best Of Me by Nicholas sparks and The Distance Between Us by Kasie West both offer different viewpoints on people of different social classes. Spark’s book shows how the rich family disapproves of the boy from the lower class, while West’s book shows the opposite perception of how the upper class boy is judged as obnoxious and rejected by the lower class. While both characters have something to overcome, It is clearly portrayed that the more indigent character in the two books has more to overcome with their internal struggles as well as either being oppressed and judged by other members of society.
Works Cited
- “Richard Bach Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/richard_bach_136009.
- Sparks, Nicholas. The Best of Me. Grand Central Publishing, 2012.
- West, Kasie. The Distance between Us. Scholastic, 2014.
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