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Chapter 9: December 21, 2000
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in We Need to Talk About Kevin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Guilt and Accountability
Marriage, Family, and Social Norms
Nature vs. Nurture
Idealism vs. Reality
Forgiveness and Empathy
Summary
Analysis
In the present, Eva is visiting her mother for Christmas. Eva’s brother, Giles, decided not to come when he found out Eva was going to their mother’s house. Giles and his family find it depressing to be around Eva after Kevin’s murders. In a way, Eva suspects, Giles is also jealous of Eva’s fame. Eva became much closer to her mother after Kevin’s murders. On that Thursday, Eva called her mother to tell her the news. Her mother responded kindly. And despite being severely agoraphobic, she even offered to fly to Eva to comfort her. Eva considers that Kevin’s murders are not that shocking to her mother because most of her mother’s own family was murdered in the Armenian genocide.
Eva’s suspicion that her brother is jealous of her fame seems strange and conceited. After all, Eva is famous only because her son committed murder, and the public looks down on her. Eva often seems unreasonably self-centered and egotistical. Other than her suspicion of her brother, she also suspects that her mother resents her for her worldliness and that her infant son is trying to break up her marriage. While Kevin’s motives are ambiguous, Eva’s suspicions of others often seem baseless, and she fails to take responsibility for her own actions, which may influence how people treat her.
Themes
After Siobhan leaves, Kevin completely stops screaming. Though he is able to walk at this point, he barely moves, he is silent all the time, and he doesn’t play. Eva takes him to the pediatrician, but the doctor finds nothing wrong with him. Kevin watches Eva whenever she is home with him, and it makes Eva feel self-conscious. She also notices that Kevin looks a lot like her. One day, Kevin starts to speak in full sentences. He tells Eva that he doesn’t like a TV show and that he hates cookies. Franklin posits that Kevin refused to speak until this point because he was a perfectionist, but Eva thinks it’s because Kevin wanted to eavesdrop without people knowing he could understand them. Eva considers how different her own view of Kevin is from her husband’s. While she thinks that Kevin has a complex and secret internal life, Franklin thinks of him as a simpler being.
It seems slightly paranoid that Eva feels self-conscious when her infant son stares at her, but later in his life it becomes clear that Kevin really is cunning and deceitful. Again, it’s not clear whether Kevin really is as conniving as Eva thinks or if her perception of him comes from paranoia. Ultimately, it seems most likely that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Themes
For a while, Kevin speaks only to Eva and refuses to speak in front of Franklin. Kevin speaks mostly to express disdain for various things he doesn’t like. One day, he removes the stuffing from a stuffed animal that Eva and Franklin thought he was attached to. On his third birthday, Kevin tears apart his birthday cake—it’s one of the only occasions Eva sees him express joy. His technique reminds Eva of a surgeon removing a person’s heart.
Eva seems appalled by Kevin’s destruction of the toy and cake. Realistically, these behaviors don’t seem that unusual for a three-year-old child. Nevertheless, Eva’s descriptions of them foreshadow Kevin’s murders. Though Eva is worried about Kevin’s behavior, she doesn’t express concern for his feelings or mental health, even though she thinks he’s unhappy. Eva seems only to care about how her son affects her and not at all about his wellbeing.
Themes
Eva and Franklin eventually arrive at a compromise. Eva agrees to move to the suburbs if she can also take an extended trip to Africa for work. Eva’s trip to Africa is underwhelming, however, and she doesn’t end up publishing a travel guide on Africa. On the trip, Eva misses Franklin—and she realizes that she’s missed him since Kevin was born. She expected the trip to be a break from Kevin, but she doesn’t feel relief. Eva realizes that she is no longer young, and that she has lost freedom since having a family. She resolves to try harder to be a good parent to Kevin. She realizes that she has been waiting for him to pique her interest. Instead, she decides that she simply must try to be interested in him. Eva concedes that she feels most positively about Kevin when she’s not around him.
Eva thinks of the trip to Africa in the same way she thinks of motherhood—she expects an exciting adventure, but it falls short of her expectations. The last time Eva resolved to be a better parent was during her extended stay at the hospital, so it seems true that Eva feels more positive about Kevin when she’s not around him. Eva’s mindset about parenthood still seems unhealthy even though she wants to be a better mother. She thinks only about what she can gain from motherhood rather than what she can offer her son.
Themes
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