Forgiveness and Empathy Theme Analysis

In the letters that make up We Need to Talk About Kevin, Eva often asks her husband, Franklin, to forgive her for being a bad mother. Though Franklin is dead, Eva is desperate for his forgiveness, and she seems to think that if he understood the trouble she went through with their violent and problematic son, Kevin, (trouble that Franklin refuses to acknowledge when he’s still alive), then he would be able to forgive her. Eva seeks forgiveness from others, too, including the parents of Kevin’s victims. One parent, Thelma Corbitt, forgives Eva immediately and easily—she even invites Eva to her son’s funeral. Thelma tells Eva that she understands that Eva is worse off than any of Kevin’s victim’s families. After all, Eva loses her entire family in the mass murder, since Kevin also kills Franklin and Celia. Thelma’s forgiveness doesn’t mean that she accepts her son’s death or even that she doesn’t blame Eva for it in some way. She forgives Eva simply because she understands Eva’s perspective. On the other hand, Mary Woolford, the mother of another of Kevin’s victims, seeks revenge by shaming Eva and taking her to court. Mary doesn’t seem to consider Eva’s personal loss at all. The difference between Thelma and Mary is empathy—Thelma tries to understand Eva’s hardship, while Mary can only focus on her own loss.

By the end of the novel, Eva also seems to forgive Kevin—at least partially. Through reflecting on her own actions and Kevin’s childhood, Eva notices how similar she is to Kevin; they are both selfish and desperate for excitement in their own ways.  She can empathize with him to some extent, and this allows her to find some measure of forgiveness for him. Eva writes to Franklin hoping that if he could read her letters, he would finally understand her perspective and thus would be able to forgive her. In turn, the novel implies that forgiveness doesn’t require people to ignore their own sorrow or ignore issues of blame—rather, forgiveness comes from a place of empathy and can, in some ways, exist alongside other complicated emotions.