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.