Unreliable Narrator

Throughout the novel, the reader only is able to see the events of Kevin’s life through Eva’s perspective. However, Eva’s perspective is clearly biased. Therefore, while I do agree that Kevin’s childhood showed psychopathic tendencies, I do not entirely agree with the opinion Eva seems to have that the terrible events of Thursday could have been avoided.

First, Eva is obviously trying to convince the reader that it was not her fault. She constantly mentions how hard she tried to be a good mother to Kevin, making statements such as “I also tried to give him a jump on first grade by tutoring him on the basics,” (190) to clarify that she spent time with him and tried to help him do well in school.  Additionally, one of the few interactions with another person that she outlines involves the mother of another inmate, who tells Eva not to “let them saddle [Eva] with all that killing,” (166) which again emphasizes that Eva does not believe she bears any responsibility for what Kevin did.

As a class, we discussed that researchers have considered the idea that children with psychopathic tendencies get these genetic qualities from their parents. Just as Kevin never seems to care about any person, before Celia is born, Eva only seems to care about Franklin. She makes it clear that her relationship with her mother is tenuous when she makes fun of her during their night out with friends (22). Eva also explains that she would have preferred to stop hanging out with their friends who now had children (14). Furthermore, Eva manipulates the people she cares about just as much as Kevin does, such as when she convinced Franklin to walk with her by bringing up that she won’t be home for a while (16) and when she soothed Celia about Snuffles because she knew “Celia would believe anything,” (283). Eva unintentionally exhibits some of the qualities that she hated so much in Kevin. This suggests that Eva was also unstable.

The entirety of the novel takes place after the terrible events of Thursday. Eva has is an immediate bias associated with this. She is careful to be kind while referring to any person that died on that day, such as asking for forgiveness when she mentions that one of Kevin’s victims did would never achieve his dream (246). She is outright with how she does not have any love for Kevin, but goes to visit him merely because “a mother should visit her child in prison,” (39).  Her opinions of every character in the novel have been affected by Kevin’s terrible action.

While I agree that based on the events in his child, Kevin had psychopathic tendencies, I do not forget that each event is narrated by his mother, who is clearly not an unbiased or trustworthy character. When she asserts that Thursday was unavoidable, I do not necessarily agree.