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
Because Ed is cowardly and weak (and he knows it), he decides to abandon the mission of the man and his wife for a while. He feels ashamed of this, but he wants to succeed at the other addresses on the card before he undertakes such a difficult mission. Ed decides to go to the second address on the card at the designated time. He sits in the kitchen drinking coffee with his dog and assures himself that the next address must be better than the last.
Ed’s inability to face the man at the first address conflicts with his previous assumptions about heroism. It seems here that heroism is not a trait one inherently finds within themselves, but instead a practice that one builds upon as they face greater and greater challenges.
Themes
Ed and his friends play an overly complicated card game of their own invention at Audrey’s house. As they bicker among themselves, Ed observes Audrey and affirms his hopeless love of her. He wonders what would happen if he confessed his feelings to her. She seems frustrated with his wasted potential, but, Ed reasons, she has slept with plenty of other losers. Yet Ed knows he doesn’t just want to sleep with her.
Ed sees success in life as intrinsically linked to success in romantic relationships, so Audrey’s supposed rejection of him contributes to his overall frustration with his life. Still, he recognizes here that there’s more to meaningful relationships than just sex, indicating some growth in his definitions of interpersonal success.
Themes
Marv asks Ed what happened after he received the playing card in the mail. Ed says he threw the card away, but he thinks back to how earlier that night, he went to the second address on the card. Through the window, Ed watched the house’s one resident, an elderly woman, eat dinner all alone. Ed could tell just from watching the woman interact with her kitchen appliances that she is kind, but incredibly lonely. Even hours later, Ed still feels transformed by observing her kindness.
The transformation Ed feels shows how observing the caring attitude of another person has influenced him to become more caring himself. The old woman also proves that one does not need to be surrounded by personal relationships in order to be kind, and also that being a caring person is not an act that one does for the approval of others; it seems to have its own inherent worth.
Themes
Ed is so distracted by his worries about the old woman and whether or not she is okay that he forgets to play his turn in the card game. He makes a deal with himself: if he draws the Ace of Diamonds, he will go help the old woman. He draws that exact card from the deck and smiles to himself. Audrey winks at him, as if she understands what has just happened.
Ed’s dependency on drawing the right card shows how one can use fate as an excuse to either do or not do a difficult task. One could interpret Ed’s success in drawing the ace as either an outside force influencing his life or him ascribing meaning to random chance in order to avoid making his own decisions.
Themes
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The next day, Ed has put on his nicest clothes and picked up a cake from the bakery. The cashier at the bakery turns out to be Misha, the bank teller from the robbery. She calls Ed a hero, but he feels more like a fool. She tells him she quit the bank job because her boss was sexually harassing her. Ed feels bad for Misha, since she had to quit just because someone else was acting inappropriately.
Ed’s supposed act of heroism at the bank failed to solve the teller’s real problem of sexual harassment, showing how these dramatic, one-off acts of heroism often fail to change enduring societal problems such as sexism. Misha having to quit because of the actions of another also shows that Ed is not the only person whose life is strongly influenced by outside forces.
Themes
Ed approaches the old woman’s house and knocks on the door. The woman greets him excitedly by calling him Jimmy and saying she always knew he would come. She smiles and hugs him before inviting him inside for dinner. Ed sits down at the dining room table and he and the woman joke around and reminisce about “old times.” From the dining room table, Ed can see people rushing past outside. He also sees the woman’s ID card, which reveals that her name is Milla.
Ed’s morality is complicated in this scene, because he is lying to a clearly confused elderly woman by pretending to be somebody he is not, but this lie brings the woman great joy. This suggests that in certain situations, a seemingly immoral act like lying is justified because the act is an expression of caring for another person.
Themes
Milla and Ed sit down for dinner and Milla tells him all about her day. After dinner, Milla asks Ed (whom she keeps addressing as Jimmy) where he has been all this time. The sadness in her eyes as she speaks deeply troubles Ed, before he tells Milla that he has been looking for her. Hearing this makes Milla happy again. Eventually, she says that she should say goodnight. Before Ed leaves, she asks him if she will see him again. Ed answers yes, absolutely. On his walk home after seeing Milla, Ed realizes the card’s message is that he should heal Milla’s loneliness.
Ed’s revelation about being called to spend time with a lonely woman shows a shift in his perspective where he realizes that helping others does not required dramatic, dangerous acts of heroism like stopping a bank robbery, but instead involves being present and empathetic for another person in need. Ed must pretend to be Jimmy in order to do this, showing in a rather literal way that helping others is not about who one is, but who one can become.
Themes
