Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Brief History of Seven Killings, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence vs. Peace
Masculinity, Sexuality, and Homophobia
Jamaican Culture and Identity
Politics, Power, and Corruption
Witness and Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Josey has an appointment with Doctor Love, a Cuban man. Both Peter Nasser and Louis Johnson have tried to control Josey’s access to Doctor Love, but have not succeeded. Josey first met Doctor Love in November 1975, and discovered that Doctor Love tried to kill Che Guevara four times. Doctor Love says that he has learned “tricks” from the CIA, but now works for Medellín.
Doctor Love is a symbol of the international network of political power, violence, and corruption, which connects everything from counterrevolutionary Cubans to Josey Wales to the CIA to the drug cartels of Medellín in Colombia.
Themes
Josey met Doctor Love at Kingston Harbor. Doctor Love told Josey to duck, and shortly after a series of cars exploded. Two months earlier, Doctor Love blew up a Cuban plane headed for Jamaica, killing everyone onboard including the Cuban national fencing team.
Doctor Love is something of a cartoon villain, right down to his comically ironic name. He has less depth and complexity than the other characters, instead serving as an instigator of pure chaos in the novel.
Themes
Back in the present, Josey picks up the book Weeper is reading: it is Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy. Doctor Love tells Josey that America needs a new “Santa Claus” to take a gift from Bogotá, and says that Josey will need to do something to “impress them.” Josey tells Doctor Love to call him in two days, as tomorrow he will be busy.
Here Doctor Love’s cartoonishness is further emphasized by his use of the euphemistic language “Santa Claus” and “gift” to describe the movement of cocaine from Colombia to the United States.
Themes
