Celia v. Kevin

So I was absolutely astonished when Eva actually had a second successful birth.  I thought for sure something would go wrong and somehow that new child would not appear, since she had written about 220 pages without a single mention of Kevin's sibling.  To be honest, after having read about fifty pages of Celia, I really only think that Shriver brought in this character to exaggerate Kevin's growing psychopathy.  There is so much comparison by Eva of Kevin to Celia and Celia to Kevin, and yet they are so different they probably should not be compared at all.  Can you legitimately compare polar opposites without only emphasizing extremes?

Eva does pay attention to the same details about her pregnancy/birth with Celia as she did with Kevin--"I couldn't resist inferring an eagerness on her part, as I had once inferred a corresponding reluctance from Kevin's foot-dragging fortnight's delay" (220).  She also brings in these really cool descriptors, comparing Kevin's and Celia's infancy:

"Still, on the birth of both my children, I could immediately discern a dominant emotional tone, like the top note of a chord or the foreground color of a canvas" (220).

and also contrasting infant natures:

"In Kevin, the note was the shrill high pitch of a rape whistle, the color was a pulsing, aortal red, and the feeling was fury" (220).

While somehow managing to also describe Celia's birth with special emphasis, extra weight, more words, and less of her wierd harsh tell-it-like-it-is tone:

"Yet when Celia slid to hand, she may have been visually beet-faced and bloody, but her aural color was light blue.  I was overcome by the same clear-skied azure that had visited me when we made love.  She didn't cry when she was born, and if she emitted a figurative sound it was the quiet, meandering tune of a rambler far from home who is enjoying the walk and doesn't think anyone is listening" (220).

Notice Celia is associated with love/sex from the beginning, while Kevin gets branded with violence and abnormality, as soon as a more normal baby (or at least a baby who wants to breast-feed is born.  Once another child, a parallel experience emerges, Kevin's ultimate strangeness is even more obvious.  Even Franklin has problems, or so Eva claims--"In any case, the years ahead would later confirm my initial intuition: that you could tell the difference, and that the difference made you angry" (221).  

While Celia creates a standard that Kevin is compared to by Eva in writing and mentality, even the presence of Celia in Kevin's life brings out more of his weird actions--or at least actions that no one understands.  So while this foil character emerges to highlight his psychopathy in a literary sense, it also occurs within the physical world of Kevin as well.  Note that he splashes water on her face as an infant, showing a creepy curiosity (222).  Also, we are led to believe that Kevin had something significant to do with the disappearance of Celia's ridiculously expensive South African pet (282-283--a side note...Celia got this weird monkey thing and they barely even considered a dog for Kevin, another similar circumstance parenting wise but with a completely different result).

There is also a general build up of Kevin's misdeeds throughout this reading, starting with that absolutely horrifying vandalization of the maps, his strange episodes at school (he is a bully, not to mention that horrifying eczema episode) his bizarre diaper thing.  Then Celia is brought in right after the arm-fracture, and his weird acceptance/approval of his mother's abuse.  Shriver builds up Kevin's escapades, so just when you think it can't get any creepier, a complete contrast comes in and you are reminded of what a freak Kevin really is.