Everything I Never Told You Lydia Lee Character Analysis

Intent or Accident: Exploring the Death of Lydia Lee

The death of a 16-year-old girl was the main event that launched the story of the novel, Everything I Never Told You, into action. Lydia Lee died by drowning, but the author, Celeste Ng, seemingly left the reason for her death up to speculation. Did Lydia kill herself or was her death entirely accidental? Lydia did not commit suicide, and she did not have the intent of dying in the lake that night. This is demonstrated by the promises she made to herself before she got into the boat, the renewal of her life that she was looking for, and her intent to follow through with her ideas in the future. Lydia’s death was an accident because she made a list of numerous promises to herself that …show more content…
She told herself that she would “kick her way to the dock and reach up to the planks and pull herself up out of the water” (Ng 276). She also told herself that she could really make the swim (Ng 276). Since she thought through the way she would get out of the water and honestly believed that she could manage the swim back to the dock once she jumped in, it does not seem likely that her intention was to die. The next day, she also wanted to “ask Nath about Harvard” and “tell him he’d have a wonderful time” (Ng 276). She even wanted to follow through with all of the promises that she had made to herself about her future. Since Lydia had multiple different plans that she wanted to accomplish the next day and even farther into the future, no support is offered to her death being purposeful. Obviously, she would have known that killing herself would result in her never getting to attempt the plans that she had for herself. Since it is apparent that she would have been aware of this, it is not logical for her to self-sabotage and ruin her plans before she got a chance to follow through with them. This is especially true when her intent to carry out these plans is clearly