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Act 3, Scene 7
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
Oliver eats Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Ohio. He, his mother, his father, and his two sisters Caroline and Leah sit around the table as Leah asks Oliver questions about Dellecher. He notices that Caroline has gotten thin, while Leah has gotten curvy. Oliver’s parents keep him at the table after dinner to talk to him. They tell him that Caroline is struggling with her health, as she’s “not eating right,” and that they’re sending her to an expensive recovery center. They say that they can’t afford to pay for Caroline’s treatment and Oliver’s last semester of Dellecher at the same time. Oliver becomes angry and argues with them, but his father shouts at him that his sister’s health comes before Oliver’s “playing pretend.”
This scene emphasizes the importance of Dellecher to Oliver. When his parents threaten to take Dellecher away, he doesn’t behave like the mild and empathetic version of himself anymore. It forces the reader to wonder whether Richard was right when he scoffed at Oliver’s kind persona on Halloween—if Oliver puts his expensive education over his sister’s health, is he really as nice as he acts? In this way, the scene suggests that art and theatre might have corrupted Oliver, compromising his values.
Themes
