Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I Am the Messenger, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Circumstance vs. Choice
Heroism, Sainthood, and Ordinariness
Purpose, Success, and Meaning
Hope, Caring, and Beauty
Summary
Analysis
The bank robber is only sentenced to six months in jail. Ed tries to ignore the robber’s death threat and focus on the first address listed on the card. He attempts to go to the house on Monday, and then Tuesday, but doesn’t work up the courage until Wednesday around midnight. He waits on the dim, rundown street and remembers that Marv used to have a girlfriend who lived here, before she and her family suddenly moved away.
Ed’s failed attempts to visit the house, even though he doesn’t even know what is there, shows how when one builds up the idea of heroism, they may struggle to summon the courage to meet their expectations.
Themes
Ed finds the house he is looking for and hides among the trees on the other side of the street. It is nearly the time listed on the card. A large, clearly drunk drunk man approaches the house. He enters and starts shouting for his wife. Through the bedroom window, Ed sees the man grab his wife and rape her. Ed wonders why the world doesn’t notice this crime, but then he realizes that the world doesn’t care. Ed realizes he has been chosen to care. A young girl comes out onto the porch of the house and cries.
Ed belief that the world doesn’t care about the wife’s suffering suggests he sees people as generally selfish. However, Ed’s revelation that he has been chosen to care complicates this previous belief, as it suggests there is an outside force sending help for people like the woman. The empathy of the situation remains complicated, because if Ed has been told to care, then his empathy might not be genuine.
Themes
The rape finally stops, and the young girl goes back inside. The woman comes out and sits on the porch. Ed can see the pain all over her whole body. He contemplates going to comfort her, but a voice inside his head stops him. Ed realizes the card wants him to stop the Edgar Street man from abusing his wife. Ed watches the woman cry and wonders how people survive a life like this.
Ed’s intuition that he must solve the woman’s situation rather than just comforting her suggests that he realizes one cannot simply feel sorry for a situation but instead must take action to stop it. This shows that witnessing an injustice will drive even someone as lazy as Ed to want to help and shows how he does possess the potential for genuine heroism.
Themes
