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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If We Were Villains, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Free Will
Identity and Disguise
Love and Sexuality
Theatre and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
In 2007, Oliver Marks sits in a prison and thinks of a quotation: “But that I am forbid / To tell the secrets of my prison-house, / I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul.” Joseph Colborne, chief of the prison, enters the room and congratulates Oliver on the success of his parole hearing. After some back and forth, Colborne informs Oliver that he’s leaving the force and asks Oliver to tell the story of his crime, something Colborne has been curious about for the 10 years that Oliver has been imprisoned. Now, he wants to finally put the mystery to rest. Oliver agrees to tell Colborne the story as long as they’re clear on three things: he’ll tell it only once he’s released, the information can’t be used against anybody, and he’s not apologizing for what he did.
The lines Oliver quotes are from Hamlet, from the scene in which the ghost of the dead king describes his afterlife to Hamlet. The “prison-house” that the ghost alludes to is purgatory. Oliver is using the quotation literally—he really is in a prison—but also to suggest the mental punishment of his 10 years of solitude. His agreement to Colborne’s proposition on his own terms suggests that Oliver wants to share the burden of his story, but he’s wary of his words being used against him. Thus, the novel’s opening sequence immediately establishes the power (and danger) of words.
Themes
