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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Columbine, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence and Spectacle
Memory, Bearing Witness, Trauma, and Testimony
Failure
Media: Misinformation and Sensationalism
Religion: Escapism, Evangelism, Opportunism
Summary
Analysis
On Monday afternoon, Frank DeAngelis and Dave Sanders enjoy a Columbine baseball game together. They discuss their lives, their shared pasts, and their coaching. Both men look back fondly on their careers as coaches and teachers, but both regret perhaps having “shortchanged” their own children. Dave confides in Frank that he is planning to take his first summer ever off from coaching, and then heads out while Frank stays behind for the rest of the game.
Though Mr. D and Dave believed it to be just another Monday afternoon, their conversation took a turn for the profound—Dave was on the verge of a major life change, and had chosen to confide in his friend. Little did they know this was one of the last times they would speak.
Themes
After a slightly tense practice, Dave returns home to his sleeping wife. He has a present for her mother’s birthday, which is the following day. Linda wakes up and catches up with Dave, then falls asleep with a smile. The following morning, the two of them, both running late, argue briefly—they are both stressed. They leave the house without kissing the other goodbye.
Again, Cullen highlights the unknowability of life through dramatic irony. It is just another Tuesday morning for Dave and his wife, but they do not know that everything between them is about to come to an end.
Themes
