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Chapter 31
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Man Called Ove, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory and Grief
Rules and Order
Love, Family, and Community
Principles, Fairness, and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
The narrator says that Sonja said that men like Ove and Rune were men caught in the wrong time. Dignity to them meant never being reliant on someone else and being able to do things themselves. After Sonja's accident and when she received her diagnosis, Ove couldn't deal with his anger, and he fought the council for everything as a way of managing his frustration. He finally blamed the white shirts for everything that happened to Sonja, including the miscarriage.
For proudly self-sufficient individuals like Ove and Rune, the socialized healthcare system presents its own problems, as it by nature requires them to accept help from the government (though the white shirts have shown that the "help" isn't always what they want or need). The white shirts become an easy target for Ove's anger, because socialized healthcare requires that a person be reliant on the government for help.
Themes
Late that night, Ove and the cat go to bed. Ove waits for the cat to fall asleep on Sonja's pillow before he gets up, goes downstairs, and gets out the rifle. He tarps the floor and the walls of his hall. Ove decides that wearing his nice clothes might not be the best idea, so he strips to his underwear and writes "bury me in my suit" on his envelope of after-death arrangements for Parvaneh. He decides to turn on the radio so it's not so quiet for the cat after he's gone. Ove listens to the local news and curses when he hears that there have been a number of burglaries over the weekend.
It's important to take note of how Ove is preparing for his death here. The envelope is now addressed to Parvaneh, not just whoever finds his body, and he turns on the radio because he's thinking of how the cat will feel. Suicide is no longer just about Ove and Sonja. It's beginning to encompass Ove's entire neighborhood, and he's considering how they'll feel after he's no longer a part of it.
Themes
A few seconds later, Adrian and Mirsad come to Ove's door. Ove naturally thinks they're thieving hooligans and kicks the door open. Adrian screams and runs straight into the side of Ove's toolshed, while Mirsad attempts to explain who he is to Ove. Ove waves the rifle around and yells at Adrian to be quiet. Mirsad drops his bag and says that this was Adrian's idea, and Adrian blurts that Mirsad came out as gay to his father.
Ove's belief system and love of structure dictates that young men like Adrian and Mirsad can't possibly be up to any good this late at night. Mirsad has just been ousted from his family and now finds himself without community, which puts him in a similar position to Ove. But Mirsad, unlike Ove, has people to call on from the start.
Themes
Mirsad explains that he told his father, Amel, that he is gay, and Amel had kicked him out. Mirsad says that this was a stupid idea. Ove presses for more information, and Mirsad and Adrian explain that they were hoping Mirsad could stay with Ove. Ove tells them he's not running a hotel and points the rifle at Adrian. Mirsad pushes the rifle away and apologizes. Ove calms down and steps back into his hall. He notices a photo of Sonja from the trip to Spain, which she refused to take down. In the morning, Ove wakes to a house occupied by himself, the cat, and a gay person. He thinks that Sonja would've liked it.
Again, Ove makes decisions (and is deterred from committing suicide) by thinking about what Sonja would want. The fact that Sonja would've liked having a houseguest makes the idea of opening his home up to community far more palatable for Ove. Notice too that houses symbolize fairness and offer to their residents what the residents put into them. Ove is beginning to put people and community into his house, and he'll get the same in return.
Themes
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