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Part 2, Chapter 1: Five Months After
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nineteen Minutes, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Victims vs. Perpetrators
Vengeance vs. Justice
Expectations and the Failures of Family
Lost Innocence
Appearances vs. Reality
Summary
Analysis
Lewis wakes Peter up; after seeing how cranky he is, he leaves his son in peace. Peter gets out of bed and goes straight to his computer to see if anyone on the forums has feedback on Hide-n-Shriek. However, instead the email he sent Josie comes up on the screen. Horrified, he tries to close it, but the computer is frozen and he is taunted by his own words. In the next section, which is another handwritten extract, the writer recalls pouring salt on slugs when they were a child. They reflect on the nature of schadenfreude, the experience of finding joy in watching other people suffer.
This passage provides key information about the immediate events that caused the shooting. Although it is not stated explicitly, it seems that Peter didn’t necessarily plan for the shooting to happen on that particular day—if he had, one would imagine the first thing he did after waking up would be some kind of acknowledgment or preparation. Furthermore, it was seeing the email that triggered his actions.
Themes
