Eva's mothering

I definitely have a question from the reading. It comes from when Eva throws Kevin across the room. First of all, why in the world would any mother do that? Yes, moms get mad sometimes and yell at their children but no one should ever be physically hurt by their own parent. I feel like this impulse of hers to throw Kevin comes from the lack of her base line love for him. Like it was discussed in last class, she never felt this overwhelming sense of love for her own son, something that can’t develop over time. She’s always felt sort of unattached to her son. But I don’t see any excuse to throw a child, not even your own kid, across the room, no matter how annoying or frustrating they are being. Something that I observed from this section of the book is that Eva doesn’t seem to have this overwhelming sense of remorse. She doesn’t completely freak out over what she has done, just simply worries about others finding out about what happened. She seems to be more a more of an emotionally unattached and disturbed woman. She even said, “For two seconds I’d felt whole, and like Kevin Khatchadourian’s real mother. I felt close to him. I felt like myself-my true, unexpurgated self-and I felt we were finally communicating.” These are not normal human emotions. If anything, they lean more towards psychopathic behavior and emotions more than anything. I don’t really understand why someone would feel like a “real mother” after throwing the child across the room for something he can’t really control. I think the answer goes back to the fact that she is just not meant to be a mother. When kids are frustrating or a situation is not going well, mothers still have a love for their children that keep them from doing or saying the things Eva says and does. One other thing that really puzzles me is how Kevin so easily lies about the incident, and not just that but how Eva doesn’t fess up to it. Yes, she will seem like a terrible person, but isn’t that something we learn when we’re young? To be honest? Mother’s are supposed to be selfless and that’s something she’s clearly lacking. How does she not feel some sort of guilt for what she has done? 

The Plausibility of Shriver's Characters

            Last week during class, the question of the validity Shriver’s characters was raised. This was something I had already been contemplating; not only is each of the main characters in this novel polar opposites of one another, but they stick to their starkly different personalities throughout the entire novel (or at least the first 2/3 of it). In class, we discussed this question in relation to Eva and Franklin. But as I read further, I began to question it even more in relation to the personalities of their kids. Kevin and Celia seem to me even less real than their parents, with personalities that I have just never come across in real life. So far, it seems to me that two strikingly different parents produced two strikingly different kids; neither of which shares anything in common with either parent. Is this possible?

            Let’s first look at Kevin. When I started reading this book, just vaguely knowing the premise, I kind of expected the author to make us sympathize with the child murderer, at least a few times throughout the storyline. Instead, Kevin is just about the most horrible person one could imagine; an “Evil Incarnate,” as Eva so accurately describes (Shriver 245). He spends almost his entire first 16 years (with the exception of two weeks) acting out the prime example of just how to be a little shit. From a newborn baby with a constant cry of “outrage” to a seven-year-old kid who takes pleasure in making little girls cause themselves to bleed to a 16-year-old who prides himself on his murders,  Kevin almost literally never shows a good side to his character (90, 188, 41).  His character is almost too extreme for me to wrap my head around.

            And then Celia comes along, and just inflates my incredulousness. For different reasons, I cannot imagine a girl like Celia existing as she does in the novel. Celia, the “shy, fragile,” innocent, faithful girl who, even as a small child, doesn’t show any emotion even close to hatred, is somehow supposed to be related to Kevin the evil incarnate and Eva the woman who knows everything and always speaks her mind (230). In addition to seeming impossible due to her lack of relation to her family, however, Celia also just doesn’t seem like a real person in general. No child that I have ever known chokes down food that she finds disgusting simply so as not to offend her mother, or declines from screaming when her books are covered in bugs because she’s just too sweet (226, 231).

            I’m still trying to determine how the characters in the novel are possibly all related, and how one set of parents could create two so vastly different children. I’ve drawn the conclusion that Shriver did not put much effort into making his characters seem plausible in any sense whatsoever; however, one could argue that this potential flaw actually sort of makes the book. 

How do you love a kid like Kevin?

While initially it may not seem as if there is much of a distinction between loving someone and wanting to love someone, I believe that the difference between the two is huge, and that it poses an important question throughout Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need to Talk About Kevin—Does Eva love Kevin or does she merely want to love Kevin? My answer has waffled quite a bit up to this point in the reading, and I still am unable to say that I feel 100 percent one way or another. In fact, I won’t deny that I found passage upon passage in which Eva seemed to neither love Kevin nor want to love him. However, throughout this literary response I would like to explore the idea that Eva desperately, albeit unsuccessfully, wanted to love her son.

One of Eva’s more trying moments in motherhood came after she found out that she had wrongly accused Kevin of being the mastermind behind the prank he and his friend Lenny played, where they threw rocks off the side of a bridge into oncoming traffic. She felt guilty that she had not believed Kevin in the first place, and to make up for it she decided to have a “date” with Kevin in order to spend more time together. However, as their date drew closer, Eva found herself dreading it: “To say that I wanted, truly desired, to spend all afternoon and evening with my prickly fourteen-year-old son would be a stretch, but I did powerfully desire to desire it” (269). This is the best example of Eva’s “wanting to want” feelings regarding Kevin. While she does admit to hating Kevin “often” during one of their tense jailhouse visits (44), she never explicitly states, without any qualifiers, that she hates Kevin. However, she also never says that she wholly loves him. To the bitter end she keeps attempting to communicate with him, to understand him, and most importantly, to love him. But she is never able to accept Kevin for exactly who he is, and therefore she is never able to love him, as she admits that “Kevin was hard to like, much less to love” (224).

With a child like Kevin it is understandable that Eva had a difficult time enjoying his sour company, and I have to give Eva credit for her constant attempts to form a deeper bond with her firstborn. However, up to this point in the reading, she has ultimately failed to love Kevin. 

Differing Parental Views

     As was discussed in class, there is a huge difference in the way that Eva and Franklin treat Kevin.  This has a lot to do with the fact that Eva is narrating the story.  She's not trying to make Franklin look like a bad person, but we never get to hear Franklin's side.  We can only assume and guess what he is thinking in the situations that Kevin is misbehaving.  Along those lines, the fact that Eva is the one writing all the letters is because she just wants Franklin to understand her feelings about Kevin, something he would never do throughout Kevin's childhood.  Franklin just didn't want to believe that Kevin did all those things Eva says happens.  By accepting his actions, it would have shattered his illusion of the perfect family that he had created in his head.

     Kevin and Eva have a closer relationship because of the way Franklin treats him, though.  Kevin just manipulates Franklin and has power over him, whereas with Eva, she knows everything he does and he is himself with her.  Franklin barely chastises Kevin for breaking the tea cup set and Kevin responds in an enthusiastic state to play Frisbee (182).  When Eva takes his squirt gun away, he tries to get it back, knowing his father would have to help.  When Franklin comes to help Eva says, "Kevin and I locked eyes.  His pupils stirred with what might have been pride, or glee, or pity," (152).  Kevin knew exactly what he was doing and planned it all out.  However, Franklin just continued to make excuses for him.  Kevin is always "just a kid."  The day that Violetta scratches her arms, Franklin uses that exact excuse, "he's one of the kids!" (185).           

     Although Franklin wants a family and wants the perfect picture, he does not want Eva to get pregnant again.  He says it is because of her and how she reacts to Kevin, but deep down, he knows he does not want another child like Kevin.  He makes all these points about why they shouldn't have another baby (207), but he just can't raise another Kevin.  He admits that everything isn't perfect with the family, "What could possess you, after it's gone the way it's gone, to want to do it again?" (208).  Then when he finds out she really is pregnant, he is angry and distant about it.  He even comments about how hard it will be for Kevin, because he truthfully knows how bad he acts (216).  Franklin made excuses for Kevin and didn't punish him for so long that he knows now that Kevin is older, he can't change him.  He doesn't want to do that again with another child.    

Which parent does Kevin like best?

Who is Kevin’s favorite parent?

In Lionel Shriver’s novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Kevin seems to be bored with everything.  When Kevin was young, he used to destroy or toss out any toys he received (103).  As a teen, Kevin would usually respond to questions of preference with an annoyed “whatever” or with mockery.  Kevin rarely had a fondness for anything, including his own family.  Thus, having a favorite parent would seem out of the ordinary.  However, I am of the opinion that Kevin preferred his mother to his father.

Franklin may have treated Kevin better than Eva did, but that does not mean that Kevin liked him over her.  For example, when Kevin was sick, he did not want his father around him (237).  Although Franklin really wanted to be there with Kevin, his rejection of him shows that Kevin did not need him in his time of weakness.  Another example is when Kevin first began speaking.  He would only talk to his mom; when he was with his dad he “clammed up” (116).  For whatever reason, Kevin had no need of talking to his dad.  This demonstrates how unnecessary he felt his dad was.  Franklin was at this period not afforded the luxury of speaking to his child.

On the other hand, although Eva was certainly a worse parent to Kevin, it appears that he likes her company more than that of Franklin.  Kevin revealed his appreciation for his mother’s Armenian heritage when he asked for her Armenian food while he was sick (237).  By demonstrating his interest in his mother’s native cuisine, Kevin revealed that he, indirectly, liked his mother.  In addition, Eva also mentions how she personally was “rewarded” by Kevin (200).  He decided to start being potty trained as a gift to his mom, in her view.  She even regarded his nondisclosure of the true reason he broke his arm as “protecting his mother (201).  Kevin showed his preference for Eva by not tattling on her to Franklin.

Through his actions throughout the novel so far, Kevin has revealed that he likes Eva over Franklin.  Whereas in most situations Kevin’s preference has seemed ambiguous or unclear due to his apparent disdain for everything, regarding his parents it is obvious that he likes his mother more than his father.

Interesting Story, Predictable Characters

We Need to Talk About Kevin is striking in its ability to so thoroughly examine the personalities and inner workings of so many characters without really changing them. From beginning to end, every main character represents a predictable stereotype that never veers far from his expected thoughts and actions. Eva is the career woman, the mother who did not want a child and resents him for it. Despite her desire to love him, which comes in waves, she simply cannot overcome that resentment and has to justify it, most significantly with another child, in order to prove she is a capable, loving mother and good person. Franklin is the traditional family man. He loves sports and his country and wants to instill those passions in his kids. He would never allow his wife to work while he stays at home, even if she's making considerably more money than him. Because of his burning desire to achieve the perfect nuclear family, he tends to overlook any flaws in his family that stray from that happy family picture, and deals more with the ideal than the real. Celia is the innocent younger sibling who naively can only see the good in people even when looking at pure evil, and she is her mother's saving grace.

That brings us to Kevin, who despite being the focal point of the novel and its most interesting character, is relatively static. It is not difficult to look past his insincere gestures to his father and see that every single interaction he has with every character in the book is selfish, and he has only bad intentions. While Kevin is hard to figure out, he is not hard to predict. He does not throw many curve balls at the reader. The biggest surprise he offers is those two weeks when he is sick, where his actions are hard to explain, but they ultimately change nothing and it's back to business as usual as soon as he recovers. That small window of love and normalcy for the family, even if it did come out of illness, makes the tragic ending all the more depressing.

While the novel is an interesting read and explores themes that people often do not want to discuss, the characters themselves are not what makes the book especially noteworthy. If anything they are rather unbelievable and would be hard to take seriously as a true story.

Eva's "Two-Week Revelation"

On its inside cover, at the beginning of a pull quote taken from a review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, We Need to Talk About Kevin is described as “A slow, magnetic descent into hell that is as fascinating as it is disturbing.”  This becomes especially true in Monday’s reading section, in which Eva moves into a home she absolutely detests (recall: “Franklin, the whole house was on Zoloft”), Kevin’s psychopathic behavior begins to crescendo, and Eva has another child, unassuming and tender Celia, about whom Eva remarks “from the moment his sister was born, Kevin Khatchadourian, figuratively at least, got away with murder” (113, 231).  The majority of this section is in keeping with the trajectory of the book, except for one part that I’m not quite sure – and, at this point, Eva is not quite sure – what to make of, and that is “the two weeks when [Kevin] got sick” (235).

Eva writes of this time period, “I cannot say whether we are less ourselves when we are sick, or more.  But I did find that remarkable two-week period a revelation” (236).  During his illness, Kevin undergoes a complete (albeit temporary) change of character.  He loses his hard edge with his mother and his sister, and exhibits an aversion to spending time with his father.  This causes Eva to entertain the thought that this state of being might, in fact, be the real Kevin, who is revealed when Kevin is too weak to put forth the “energy and commitment…to generate this other boy (or boys)” that make up his standard personality (236).  She also comes to realize that “underneath the levels of fury…lay a carpet of despair.  He wasn’t mad.  He was sad” (236).  In many ways, this section begins to throw into question everything the reader thinks he or she knows about Kevin.  Who is the “real” Kevin?  How does he really feel toward his mother?  If his callous-unemotional tendencies are fabricated to any extent, why?  What does he really think of his father?  Is he “evil” at heart, or is his evilness a symptom of something else?  What does this sadness, seen in him for the first time by his mother, mean?

At the risk of revealing too much (I’ve already completed the book), I will say only that I believe this to be one of the most important passages in the novel thus far, if for no other reason that this is our introduction to this “different” Kevin, and it is at this point that the true rising action to the climax begins.  This “two-week…revelation” of Eva’s is necessary to understanding Kevin as a person, in a novel where it is so easy to dismiss and quarantine him as a purely irredeemable figure.