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Act 2, Scene 3
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
Later that night, Oliver waits to change out of his costume until the others have already left. As he finishes dressing, Meredith enters the room still in her Calpurnia costume and tells Oliver that she needs a distraction. He refuses, looking at her bruise and thinking of Richard. Although Oliver objects, she kisses him, and he kisses her back. He asks her why she’s doing this, and she says that she wants to—but Oliver, believing himself her last choice, pushes her away and tells her she’s not “worth” Richard’s wrath. Meredith, hurt, looks at him and then leaves.
Meredith’s bruise is, in Oliver’s mind, a twisted symbol of their relationship. Instead of looking at it and thinking of Richard’s mistreatment of her, he thinks of Richard’s physical power and the potential of his wrath if Oliver were to have sex with Richard’s girlfriend. It’s this fear of Richard combined with Oliver’s poor self-esteem that causes him to imply that Meredith is not a valuable enough person to love and defend. To Meredith, this is a cruel confirmation of the weaknesses she shared in Gwendolyn’s class.
Themes
