Mystic River

By tracing the legacy of trauma through individual characters and displaying how their trauma influences their decisions, the novel demonstrates how a traumatic event impacts an entire community. Though Lehane does this among all of the main characters—and indeed some of the minor—the theme is most effectively illustrated through Dave. At 11, Dave is abducted and molested, psychologically scarring him for the rest of his life. Additionally, Dave is isolated by what he suffers; no one will speak to him about his experience, and he is cruelly mocked by his peers. Dave attempts to live with his trauma in many unhealthy ways, first through repression and then detachment. By dissociating himself from his trauma, Dave stores the memory in a less painful part of his subconscious: “It helped Dave to see them as creatures […] and Dave himself as a character in a story” (27). However, in creating a separate identity for his trauma, Dave cannot heal, enabling his trauma to take over his life.

The legacy of Dave’s trauma is most often represented through his violent tendencies. In a tale that makes a study of the long-term outcomes of events, the novel makes a point to position Dave’s killing of the pedophile as the ultimate result of his own molestation; after reaching a breaking point, Dave’s murder is an attempt for a cathartic release from the pain, anger, and shame he’s suffered for 25 years.