Eva is not a monster

            In our class discussion of Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, the narrator of the novel, Eva, seemed to be quite the unpopular character. I recognize that Eva is not entirely likeable—she is detached, judgmental, and likely had children for all the wrong reasons. Even so, I do not believe that her coldness is enough to justify speculation that she is completely responsible for Kevin’s actions.

            I think that the main reason readers struggle to empathize with Eva is that she does not fit our society’s understanding of what it means to be “maternal”—from the very start, she admits that she is selfish and self-loathing, and probably unfit for parenting (32). But Eva too struggles to accept her contrary attitude toward children and decides to have a baby because she wants to have a “normal” happy family, despite her terrifying aversions and inklings that she will not be a good mother (32). And right after Kevin is born, she is confused that she does not feel “this new indescribable emotion” (81) that new mothers are supposed to bask in after bringing a child into the world.

            Had Eva’s firstborn child been as angelic as her second, despite her unnaturalness with children, I believe she would have warmed up to this new presence in her life. However, she is instead stuck with a boy who makes her uneasy the first time she holds him, and who as an infant sobs in “outrage” (90) as if he can sense that his mother is unsteady around babies. Though Kevin continues to act out for his whole life, Eva tries to act like a typical mother to create some normalcy for him—she quits her job to take care of him, tries to get him to read and play, and plans mother-son outings. She is also more observant of the true Kevin than anyone else in the family, realizing that both the apathy he shows her and the “Gee, Dad boisterousness” (237) he puts on for his father are ruses. She knows that Kevin is motivated by despair, rather than anger, because people buy into his acts without a second thought (236). Though she does not really understand who Kevin truly is, she at least attempts to, which is more than can be said for a father who maintains that Kevin is a normal boy and who scolds Eva for victimizing him, even when, for example, he persuades a classmate of his to scratch her skin raw (186).

            Even if Eva, lacking the necessary “maternal” emotions, should not have had a child, I do not believe she was an inappropriate parent to the son she did create. There are plenty of parents who merely go through the motions of parenting, as some might claim Eva does, but whose children still grow up to become productive members of society.  Eva was simply unlucky enough to have a menace of a son who could not forgive the life into which he was born, and took every change to show it.