We Need to Talk About Kevin Question #1

[Emily]

Non-maternal, ambivalent mothers are one of the last taboos — and Eva is a prime example. Were her motives for having a baby entirely selfish? And if so, how much can that have factored into the outcome of an abnormally difficult baby and apathetic child? In contrast to Kevin, Celia was loving, needy and sweet — and her mother's favorite, if not her father's. By the very end of the novel, has Eva's love for Kevin, or at least her primitive loyalty to him, finally become unconditional? How does this fit in with the feminist ideal of motherhood?

[Beth]

I don't know about the feminist ideal of motherhood. I think by the end of the novel, Eva accepts that Kevin is her fault, she thinks he is like her, and she accepts responsibility for him (even though he will be a legal adult when he gets out of prison).

That's hard to stomach, considering what he did to her husband and daughter and may do to her.

Baby Kevin was no one's fault. What his parents did as Kevin was growing up was both parents' fault but, I think, mostly the father's.