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Chapter 12: January 1, 2001
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
After Kevin’s murders, Eva gives testimony in court. She explains that Kevin was not allowed to play with guns or watch graphic TV shows, and that she and Franklin used parental controls on the internet. However, none of this was effective. Kevin easily hacked through the parental controls and was able to access whatever he wanted. Eva says that trying to control what he accessed only made him hate her—her resented Eva and Franklin not because they hid things from him but because he expected that the things they sheltered him from in childhood to be exciting. Yet when he discovered things like sex and violence for himself, he found them boring. Kevin’s attitude reminds Eva of how she used to feel about travel. Eva believes that what adults really hide from children is the fact that there is no true excitement in life.
Eva’s need for excitement drives many of her actions, and she realizes that Kevin shares this trait. Eva is disappointed every time she visits a new country because it never lives up to her expectations. Similarly, Kevin is disappointed when he discovers “adult” things like sex and violence because they are not as exciting as he imagined they’d be. Kevin and Eva both romanticize novel experiences, and chasing novelty leads them both to make impulsive and selfish decisions. Eva thinks Kevin’s desire for excitement is part of what leads him to commit mass murder. In acknowledging that he may have inherited this trait from her (either genetically or by example), she indirectly takes responsibility for the indirect role she played in Kevin’s crime.
Themes
The narrative flashes back to when Eva, Franklin, and Kevin move into their new house in Gladstone. Kevin shoots water at the movers from a squirt gun. He soaks their pants and laughs that it looks like they had an accident. Eva finds this ironic, since Kevin is still in diapers at four years old. She tells Kevin to stop, but Franklin says she should let Kevin have fun. Franklin shoots Eva with the water gun and, encouraged, Kevin refuses to stop. Eva takes the water gun away. Kevin doesn’t react, but Eva can tell he is enraged. This gives Eva satisfaction. She can tell that Kevin is learning to be apathetic, since caring about the squirt gun hurt him. Later, Kevin retrieves the squirt gun, and Franklin lets him keep it. Kevin fills the gun with grape juice.
Franklin and Eva often disagree on how to handle Kevin’s behavior, which seems to encourage Kevin to act out. Their disagreements stem from the fact that they have very different experiences of parenting Kevin—Franklin is more lenient because he doesn’t sacrifice his career for Kevin like Eva does, and he doesn’t see the worst of Kevin’s behavior. Eva notices Kevin learning not to care about things as a direct result of how she and Franklin are raising him. This clearly indicates that Kevin’s environment plays a significant role in molding the cold and violent teenager he later becomes.
Themes
Eva hates the style of the house, and Franklin soon replaces many of their old belongings that Eva loved. She feels like she is losing a part of herself. She makes one room in the house her study and begins an arduous project to cover its walls with maps. She’s proud of her company and her travels, and she realizes later that she wanted Kevin to be proud of her, too. Kevin doesn’t understand why Eva goes through the trouble of redoing the room, and he becomes enraged by Eva’s explanations of the maps’ personal and sentimental value. Eva leaves the room to take a phone call, and she returns to find Kevin filling his squirt gun with red ink and spraying the maps on the wall. Eva takes the gun and stomps on it, destroying it as well as her shoes.
Eva’s wish for Kevin to be proud of her reiterates how selfishly she sometimes acts in motherhood. She hopes for Kevin to bring her excitement and validation, but she doesn’t give much consideration to what she can offer him. Travel and Eva’s career are the most important parts of her life, so Kevin destroying the study—the one part of their new home that reminds Eva of her old life—epitomizes the major sacrifice Eva made for her family. The walls dripping with red ink mirrors the earlier scene when some neighbors vandalize Eva’s house with red paint. Both of these events foreshadow Kevin’s mass murder.
Themes
