The cycle of anger and violence

The cycle of anger and violence is a recurring pattern in which trauma, fear, and powerlessness can return as aggression or self-directed harm. In the novel, it is most visible in Jungkook’s effort to avoid becoming like his abusive father, Dong-hyun: memories of childhood violence feed adult rage, and conflict repeatedly tests whether he will strike, flee, or seek repair. Shelby’s panic and self-harm form a related, inward-facing pattern, while acts of calm support and moments of restraint suggest ways the cycle might be interrupted without implying that recovery is immediate or complete.

Family Violence and Its Inheritance

Jungkook’s anger has a specific history in the violence of his childhood home. When he tries to defend his mother, Dong-hyun laughs, finishes his drink, and throws the glass across the room. A shard hits Jungkook in the face; before he can respond, his father grabs him by the collar and slaps him repeatedly. The assault leaves fear and rage tangled in the boy’s mind. The scene makes violence both an imposed injury and a model of how a powerful person behaves when challenged.

Years later, Jungkook names the family pattern during a confrontation with his older brother, Ye-jun. He accuses Ye-jun of standing by while Dong-hyun beat their mother and Jungkook. Ye-jun replies that they were children, but Jungkook insists that his brother should have told their father to stop. The argument shows how the violence persists beyond the original blows: it shapes the brothers’ memories, blame, and expectations of one another. Jungkook’s anger is directed not only at the parent who caused the harm, but also at the sibling he believes failed to intervene.

Anger Reenacted in Adult Conflict

At a bar in Los Angeles, the old grievance becomes physical. Jungkook moves to within inches of Ye-jun’s face, clenches his fists, and struggles with an internal urge to hit him. He then punches Ye-jun in the jaw, knocking him backward. The customers react in surprise. Jungkook steps away rather than continuing the fight, pays the bill, and leaves, but the withdrawal comes after the assault, not before it. The sequence captures the cycle’s momentum: an old injury intensifies a present confrontation, restraint falters, and the immediate aftermath is escape rather than resolution.

The next morning, news that Ye-jun works for their father sharpens Jungkook’s anger. His heart races and his breathing quickens; he sees darkness around him and punches a mirror, which shatters. He cleans and bandages his hand, then encounters Shelby. She asks whether they can talk or whether he intends to shout at her. He says he is not in the mood. Her effort to approach him meets the same withdrawal and hostility that have made his anger difficult to contain, and she leaves the house.

Jungkook then goes out on his motorcycle, still consumed by anger. With neither Ares Garden nor Knock Out available as places to vent it in Los Angeles, he accelerates recklessly on an empty road, disregarding the danger around him. The episode extends the cycle beyond direct assault: even when no opponent is present, rage can put Jungkook and others at risk. Earlier in the novel, he also links a return to the Ares Garden ring with a state of trance and with vice overpowering his intention to learn to love. Seeing Shelby’s tear-streaked face afterward makes him regret the choice. In both cases, acting out may offer a momentary outlet, but it leaves consequences for his relationship and his own safety.

Shelby’s Distress and the Need for Safe Contact

The novel places Jungkook’s outward aggression alongside Shelby’s inwardly directed suffering, without treating them as identical experiences. In class, Shelby’s body responds to distress before she can explain it: her heart races, her breathing quickens, and she leaves the room in tears. When Cassiopée catches up and touches her shoulders, Shelby startles, cries out in pain, and pulls away. Cassiopée stays calm and tries to approach her, but Shelby remains curled up and unwilling to be touched. The scene shows that an attempt at comfort can feel threatening when the person in distress cannot yet accept contact.

Shelby’s self-harm provides another form of the cycle’s inward turn. Alone in her room, she handles a razor blade and cuts the inner parts of her thighs. The pain brings a sensation of warmth, but fear, guilt, and suffering remain mixed together; she continues cutting, then touches the injured skin and breaks down crying. Elsewhere, she uses a Zippo lighter to burn her left forearm. The heat shifts from initially pleasant to unbearable, and she becomes emotionally numb amid loneliness and guilt. These episodes do not reproduce Jungkook’s violence toward another person, but they show distress finding a destructive route through the body when relief and trust seem out of reach.

Responses to Shelby’s panic make the importance of timing and choice concrete. In one episode, Jungkook finds her crying in a shower and turns off the water. Unsure what to do, he crouches beside her and waits until she calms; once she sits against the tile, she looks at him. In another, Cassiopée follows Shelby after she flees class, but loses sight of her. When she finds Shelby and touches her shoulders, Shelby recoils. The contrast matters: care does not consist simply of approaching or touching someone; remaining present without forcing contact can give that person room to regain control.

Restraint, Accountability, and Repair

Jungkook does not always follow anger into violence. During Robert Jefferson’s trial, his response to Jefferson’s denial is a direct verbal challenge: he questions whether Shelby and Madison lied and says that he wants Jefferson behind bars for the women he traumatized. Later, outside the courthouse, Jungkook sees journalists and supporters for victims of violence, hears death threats, and restrains himself from attacking someone in the crowd. He instead leaves with Shelby and comforts her in the car. The contrast with the punch at the bar is significant: anger remains present, but here he recognizes that another blow would not serve the protection or justice he says he wants.

Restraint also appears in Jungkook’s conflict with Shelby. When she confronts him about ignoring her and treating her badly, she challenges him to choose whether he will act as her boyfriend or lose the relationship. He clenches his fists and pinches the bridge of his nose, explicitly refusing to behave like Dong-hyun. That recognition does not undo his earlier conduct, but it marks a point at which he sees the inheritance of violence as something he can resist rather than simply repeat.

Repair requires him to acknowledge harm rather than make anger or circumstance an excuse. After the conflict, Jungkook apologizes through tears and says he should never have treated Shelby that way. He admits that she nearly left because of him. Shelby tells him she is there and will not leave, offering reassurance without erasing his responsibility. The exchange presents connection as a possible interruption to the cycle, not a cure that settles it once and for all.

Narrative Significance

The concept is developed through repetition with variation: a father throws a glass and hits his son; the adult son punches his brother, breaks a mirror, and rides dangerously; elsewhere, he pauses, leaves a public confrontation, or names the father he does not want to resemble. Each recurrence tests whether inherited violence will dictate the next action. Shelby’s panic and self-harm broaden the pattern’s emotional field, showing that pain may be turned against the self as well as carried into confrontations with others.

The narrative therefore distinguishes understanding the source of anger from being absolved of its consequences. Jungkook’s childhood helps explain his fear and rage, but his adult actions still wound relationships and create danger. His movement toward change appears in specific choices—stopping rather than escalating, apologizing, and accepting Shelby’s closeness—while the continuing pull of rage, alcohol, and reckless behavior prevents those choices from reading as a simple or completed transformation. The cycle remains a struggle between repetition and interruption.