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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Mosquito Murder:
In Chapter 2, Charlie contemplates Laura's death; he saw her beaten and hanged body with his own eyes, but it makes no sense to him how someone could have done such a thing. His incredulity is immediately followed by a moment of situational irony that helps make sense of the contradiction:
What I really can’t begin to understand is how it happened. How somebody could do it. How anybody could kill a girl. How they could take her into the bush and beat her down and hang her from a bare limb in her nightdress. How they could watch her die. How they could leave her there. How they could be capable. I snatch at a mosquito in front of my face. Wipe it on my shorts. I flinch. They’re everywhere. I hate insects.
The cruelty inflicted on Laura is shocking to Charlie. It contradicts everything he thinks he knows about human decency. The only conclusion he can reach is that some inhuman monster must have killed her. Jasper has suggested that "Mad Jack Lionel" might be the killer. Jack is an easy scapegoat because he is the town pariah. His nickname demonstrates that his sanity is already in doubt. Jasper is desperate to throw suspicion off of himself and onto someone else because he, too, is an outcast who people will likely scapegoat for Laura's death. After all, he has been scapegoated before. When Laura's body turns up, everyone will be on the lookout for the person in town who they deem the least human. Even Charlie imagines that that is the person who must be responsible for her murder. Who else could it be? And yet, no one he knows seems like a viable candidate.
Just as Charlie is contemplating this mystery, he kills a mosquito and "wipes it on his shorts." Most people do not see slapping a mosquito as a demonstration of casual cruelty. And yet, the context of this line helps the reader see that Charlie, the utterly human protagonist and narrator of the novel, has ended a life without any hesitation. Instead of remorse, he looks at the dead mosquito with the same disgust and "hatred" that must motivate many violent murders. Later in the novel, Charlie devotes a great deal of time and energy to contemplating humans' most sinister capacities. In this scene, he demonstrates a hint of the same willingness to kill he finds so perplexing. The mosquito becomes a symbol of sorts not for Laura, exactly, but more broadly for all the human victims of casual cruelty and hatred.
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