Tragedy and Destiny Theme Analysis

There was a heavy snowstorm that night. My mother went to bed and I pretended to sleep, then I snuck out to the garden and stood under the falling snow. I held my hands outstretched, catching snowflakes, watching them vanish on my fingertips. It felt joyous and frustrating and spoke to some truth I couldn’t express; my vocabulary was too limited, my words too loose a net in which to catch it. Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing. It reminded me that there was a world outside this house: a world of vastness and unimaginable beauty; a world that, for now, remained out of my reach. That memory has repeatedly returned to me over the years.

I wrote down another word: CHILDHOOD. If I was to make sense of Gabriel’s murder, I needed to understand not only the events of the night Alicia killed him, but also the events of the distant past. The seeds of what happened in those few minutes when she shot her husband were probably sewn years earlier. Murderous rage, homicidal rage, is not born in the present. It originates in the land before memory, in the world of early childhood, with abuse and mistreatment, which builds up a charge over the years, until it explodes often at the wrong target. I needed to find out how her childhood had shaped her, and if Alicia couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me, I had to find someone who would. […]

As I look back, this is my first professional transgression in dealing with Alicia—setting an unfortunate precedent for what followed. I should have stopped there. But even then it was too late to stop. In many ways my fate was already decided—like in a Greek tragedy.

Then I walked home, back up the hill, slowly, step by step. It seemed much steeper now. It took forever in the sweltering heat. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about the homeless man. Apart from pity, there was another feeling, unnamable somehow—a kind of fear. I pictured him as a baby in his mother’s arms. Did she ever imagine her baby would end up crazy, dirty and stinking, huddled on the pavement, muttering obscenities? […]

Tears collected in my eyes as I walked up the hill. I wasn’t crying for my mother—or myself—or even that poor homeless man. I was crying for all of us. There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it. The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other. I’m terrified of myself— and of my mother in me. Is her madness in my blood? Is it? Am I going to—

No. Stop. Stop—

I’m not writing about that. I’m not.

She was right. I have been groping for the right words to express that murky feeling of betrayal inside, the horrible hollow ache, and to hear Ruth say it—“the pain of not being loved”—I saw how it pervaded my entire consciousness and was at once the story of my past, present, and future. This wasn’t just about Kathy; it was about my father, and my childhood feelings of abandonment; my grief for everything I never had and, in my heart, still believed I never would have. Ruth was saying that was why I chose Kathy. What better way for me to prove that my father was correct—that I’m worthless and unlovable—than by pursuing someone who will never love me?

I buried my head in my hands. “So all this was inevitable? That’s what you’re saying—I set myself up for this?”

Leaving Kathy would be like tearing off a limb. I simply wasn’t prepared to mutilate myself like that. No matter what Ruth said. Ruth wasn’t infallible. Kathy was not my father; I wasn’t condemned to repeat the past. I could change the future. Kathy and I were happy before; we could be again. One day she might confess it all to me, tell me about it, and I would forgive her. We would work through this.

I would not let Kathy go. Instead I would say nothing. I would pretend I had never read those emails. Somehow, I’d forget. I’d bury it. I had no choice but to go on. I refuse to give into this; I refuse to breakdown and fall apart.

After all, I wasn’t just responsible for myself. What about the patients in my care? Certain people depended on me. I couldn’t let them down.

It was just as beautiful and mysterious as I remembered it. Alicia naked in the studio, in front of a blank canvas, painting with a blood red paint brush. I studied Alicia’s expression. Again it defied interpretation. I frowned.

“She’s impossible to read.”

“That’s the point—it is a refusal to comment. It’s a painting about silence.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Well, at the heart of all art lies a mystery. Alicia’s silence is her secret—her mystery, in the religious sense. That’s why she named it Alcestis. Have you read it? By Euripides.” [Jean-Felix] gave me a curious look. “Read it. Then you’ll understand.

I knew I should hide. I was exposed and in plain sight—if Kathy turned around, she’d be sure to see me. But I couldn’t move. I was transfixed, staring at a Medusa, turned to stone.

Eventually they stopped kissing and walked into the park, arm in arm. I followed. It was disorienting. From behind, from a distance, the man didn’t look dissimilar to me—for a few seconds I had a confused, out-of-body experience, convinced I was watching myself walking in the park with Kathy.

“[Vernon] was a mean bastard. The only person he ever cared about was Auntie Eva. I suppose that’s why he said it.”

“Said what?” I was losing patience. “I don’t understand what you’re saying to me. What exactly happened?”

“Vernon was going on about how much he loved Eva—how he couldn’t live without her. ‘My girl, he kept saying, ‘my poor girl, my Eva…Why did she have to die? Why did it have to be her? Why didn’t Alicia die instead?’”

[…] “And Alicia whispered something to me—I’ll never forget it. ‘He killed me,’ she said. ‘Dad just—killed me.’”

I stared at Paul, speechless. A chorus of bells started ringing in my head, clanging, chiming, reverberating. This is what I’ve been looking for. I’d found it, the missing piece of the jigsaw, at last.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing. I just want to talk.”

So we talked. We talked about Lydia and Paul, and about her mother, and the summer she died. We talked about Alicia’s childhood—and mine. I told her about my father, and growing up in that house; she seemed curious to know as much as possible about my past and what had shaped me and made me who I am.

I remember thinking, There’s no going back now. We were crashing through every last boundary between therapist and patient. Soon it would be impossible to tell who was who.

I watched his wife through the windows. As I watched, I felt increasingly sure I had to do something to help her. She was me, and I was her: we were two innocent victims, deceived and betrayed. She believed this man loved her—but he didn’t.

Perhaps I was wrong, assuming she knew nothing about the affair? Perhaps she did know. Perhaps they enjoyed a sexually open relationship and she was equally promiscuous? But somehow I didn’t think so. She looked innocent, as I had once looked. It was my duty to enlighten her. I could reveal the truth about the man she was living with, whose bed she shared. I had no choice. I had to help her.

I wish I could say I struck a blow for the defeated—that I was standing up for the betrayed and brokenhearted—that Gabriel had a tyrant’s eyes, my father’s eyes. But I’m past lying now. The truth is Gabriel had my eyes, suddenly—and I had his. Somewhere along the way we had swapped places.

I saw it now. I would never be safe. Never be loved. All my hopes, dashed—all my dreams, shattered—leaving nothing, nothing. My father was right—I didn’t deserve to live. I was—nothing. That’s what Gabriel did to me.

That’s the truth. I didn’t kill Gabriel. He killed me.

All I did was pull the trigger.

If you were cynical, you might say I revisited the scene of the crime, so to speak, to cover my tracks. That’s not true. Even though I knew the risk of such an endeavor, the real possibility that I might get caught, that it might end in disaster, I had no choice—because of who I am.

I am a psychotherapist, remember. Alicia needed help—and only I knew how to help her.

Even worse than the shock or repulsion, or possibly even fear, in Ruth’s eyes as I told her this would be the look of sadness, disappointment, and self-reproach. Because not only had I let her down, I knew she would be thinking she had let me down—and not just me, but the talking cure itself. For no therapist ever had a better shot at it than Ruth—she had years to work with someone who was damaged, yes, but so young, just a boy, and so willing to change, to get better, to heal. Yet, despite hundreds of hours of psychotherapy, talking and listening and analyzing, she was unable to save his soul. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps some of us are simply born evil, and despite our best efforts we remain that way.

I felt strangely calm as I sat in the chair by the window.

[Inspector Allen] cleared his throat and began. “Theo just left. I am alone. I’m writing this as fast as I can…”

As I listened, I looked up at the white clouds drifting past. Finally, they had opened—it had started to snow—snowflakes were falling outside. I opened the window and reached out my hand. I caught a snowflake. I watched it disappear, vanish on my fingertip. I smiled.

And I went to catch another one.