Maeve Fly

“This cacti’s cuttings sell for something like twenty $ apiece online. Its sap, known as a milky latex, when ingested or brought into contact with the eyes, causes severe rashes, blindness, and death in pets and humans. Almost no one knows this. But I do.”

The duality of this plant, beautiful yet lethal, serves as a metaphor for The Duality of Human Nature. It reflects the duality within several of the characters like Maeve, Tallulah, and Gideon. Similar metaphors abound throughout the novel, including the beautiful but frightening dolls and the beautiful but thorny bougainvillea.

“Beyond that, I will live alone. The timer on my life as it exists now is ticking louder every day, culminating in that ultimate inevitability.”

Maeve’s description of her grandmother and Kate—and her belief that both will leave her soon—emphasizes the fear and anxiety that being alone causes her. Central to Maeve’s character throughout the text is her need to have someone who understands her, and the absence of such a figure will be a focal point of her unraveling in the novel’s conclusion.

“On its belly, scrawled in letters of the same red, it says ‘In order to know virtue.’”

The dolls Maeve finds throughout the novel symbolize her dark, hidden nature. Written in blood on the first one is a partial quote from the Marquis de Sade. The full quote reads: “In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.” This allusion to Sade gives insight into Maeve’s character, as Sade was a libertine whose writings emphasized personal pleasure above all else—and who committed acts of sexual coercion and violence against many people, including minors. From his name, the word “sadism” is derived. This quote appeals to Maeve with its insistence on knowing both sides of humanity—its dark “vices” as well as its “virtuousness”—emphasizing The Duality of Human Nature and, more specifically, of Maeve.

“I had never cared or thought much about the park, or its overarching brand. But what Tallulah and this city had taught me, what perhaps had always been inside, was a deep and ever-growing appreciation for pretense. For the lacquered kitsch of our town and the hidden proclivities it brings out and encourages in its visitors and denizens. To witness people giving themselves over fully to fantasy, to participate in it.”

Maeve explains why she loves her job so much: The amusement park thrives on artifice and stands as a symbol of The Distinction Between the Private Self and the Public Persona. For Maeve, the park encapsulates the thing that thrills her most in the world: the idea of people, like herself, hiding who they truly are while living a “fantasy” in public. At the park, this idea is at its core, as people openly and fully “participate” in a life of fantasy and are as thrilled by it as she is.

“It was the feeling of it, being here now, the dry polluted air, suffused with hints of orange blossom and jasmine. It was the grime and the shine together. My grandmother’s black Prada boots stepping over dogshit and cigarettes.”

On her first day in Los Angeles with her mother, Maeve notes the beautiful yet run-down quality of the city. The image of her grandmother’s expensive boots stepping over the city’s trash is an example of juxtaposition. These two contrasting ideas—wealth and trash—come together in Los Angeles, emphasizing the city’s duality and one component of what Maeve loves about it: the fact that these two contrasting things can exist in one spot, as Hollywood attempts to hide its often shabby reality behind its glamorous façade.

“The copy of Story of the Eye that I’ve marked and notated [has] fallen out of my bag and opened to a page with my notes on it. I see that [Gideon’s] eye catches one of them. I feel it as though he has set his eyes on my naked skin. This was a glimpse not he, nor anyone, was meant to see.”

This simile compares Gideon seeing her notes in her book to how it would feel if Gideon saw her naked. She feels exposed and vulnerable because of Gideon’s insight into her life, something she tries desperately to hide from everyone. Just moments before, Maeve was annoyed at Gideon’s efforts to know her, as he asked about parts of her past that he knew from Kate. Now, she is even more uncomfortable as he gains more insight into who she is.

“A lifetime thus far of being alone. Of knowing I would be alone, forever. To stand in a full room and know oneself to be apart, that invisible barrier between you and them to be in every way uncrossable. To find the will to exist in a world so wholly unsuited for you. And to have all that wiped away. To think there is another, and she is like me.”

After Maeve’s rage gets her fired from her first job in LA, she expects her grandmother to be upset and even briefly imagines that Tallulah might kill her. Instead, she realizes that Tallulah truly understands her. For the first time, Maeve feels that she is not alone. These thoughts emphasize The Power of Personal Connection, as Maeve feels a sense of belonging for the first time in her life due to her similarities with her grandmother. Additionally, the reader is not yet fully aware of Maeve’s murders or her grandmother’s, but this scene foreshadows the truth of their shared similarity: their dark, hidden identities.

“She nods, and her performance is over. She is Hilda again, unemotional, bulldozing, ‘Okay, I will give the doctor my recommendation today.’ She stands. Hilda stands to go. She stands to go, to call the doctors. ‘Um,’ I say, barely getting it out, ‘Hilda, I…um, could you help me with something, quickly, before you go?’”

Although the reader has some understanding of Maeve’s darkness, rage, and violence by this point in the novel, it has not yet been made clear that she takes it so far as to commit murder. In this scene between Hilda and Maeve, Leede creates an atmosphere of tension and danger surrounding their interaction. The repetition of the word “stands” highlights how Maeve struggles to process the moment, emphasizing her building unease at the possibility of Hilda leaving—and thereby condemning her grandmother to death. Maeve’s hesitant request that Hilda “help” her with something then raises the question of whether Maeve is violent enough to kill her.

“I can hear the smile in [Gideon’s] voice and am certain now that this is a mistake. But I need a distraction. I need to be here and not be here. I need…so much. So much more than I will ever get.”

After Maeve learns of her grandmother’s probable death and kills Hilda, one of the first things she does it to call Gideon. Despite Maeve’s insistence that she is making a “mistake,” her actions make it clear just how reliant she is on personal connection—despite her insistence that she does not like Gideon. After Maeve gives in to her rage and kills Hilda, she needs the outlet of another person so that she does not become consumed by it.

“Now eyes on the puck. When you see it, you should think of that thing. Whatever it is that’s fucking up your life, just see it. Feel it. Breathe it in, all that anger, the injustice, all of it. And when you’re ready, you bring that stick back for the swing, and you hit that thing with every ounce of strength and rage that you possess.”

These words are spoken by Gideon when he takes Maeve out onto the ice to teach her how to hit a hockey puck. His insistence that hitting a hockey puck is his outlet for his rage hints to Maeve and the reader that the two may be more similar than they first appear. These words foreshadow the revelation that, like Maeve, Gideon has killed people, a result of his internal rage that he desperately hides from others—and uses hockey to release.

“There is ice beneath my knees and a pulsing throat beneath my hand. There is Gideon beneath me. There is Gideon. I—Something moves in me, and it is not rage, and it is not fear. It is something else, something new. Gideon. Time, suspended. I don’t know…I don’t—My heart is pounding. I cannot breathe. I reach down into his mouth and rip out his tooth.”

The first time that Maeve and Gideon have sex, it is closely tied to violence, as he pushes her onto the freezing ice, she chokes him, and it culminates in her ripping out his tooth. In this way, the “something new” that Maeve feels is a physical and emotional connection to another person. Both she and Gideon find a new outlet for their strong, hidden feelings through intimacy.

“Sheb Wooley’s 1958 ‘The Purple People Eater’ plays now, plays on repeat in fact. We each wear some of the plastic princess jewelry from the board game but have left the winning crown on the table for the moment. I chew on a dinner mint. One of the nipple clamps adorns Gideon’s chest.”

The scene where Maeve and Gideon have sex with and torture Claire is layered with figurative language. First, the motif of music is present, as the song “The Purple People Eater” tells the story of a monster who eats people—symbolizing Maeve and Gideon’s predatory sexuality. Then, they wear princess clothing, a reference to Maeve’s job as well as to the idea of hiding one’s true nature behind a costume or mask. Finally, the way that Maeve chews on a mint is juxtaposed with Gideon’s nipple clamp, emphasizing the casual way that they both are about to commit a heinous act with no remorse.

“For hours, and hours, I think of nothing. Nothing except this body, this room, and everything we can do to each other. In this room of my dreams. With this man who is perhaps more, perhaps much more, than I gave him credit for.”

The way that Maeve is so touched by the room Gideon has built for her and the way that she gets lost in sex with him shows just how important The Power of Personal Connection is for her. On that first night together she fully understands how important it is for her to be understood and loved by another person, as it allows her a distraction from everything she is struggling with in her life. In addition, their aggressive sex gives her an outlet for her passionate rage through.

“I tilt my head up slowly, look up into his face. And just as I do, the last of the sun exits our scene. The cemetery lights flash on at once, momentarily backlighting Gideon so that I see only his silhouette before me. His features obscured, palm trees and gravestones outlined behind him.”

In this intimate moment between Gideon and Maeve, as they walk through the cemetery and discuss their feelings about death, Maeve attempts to look up at Gideon, but her view is obscured by the setting sun. The failing light symbolizes the way that Gideon continues to hide his identity from Maeve: Just as she can’t physically see him, she also cannot truly see who he is yet. This image foreshadows the hidden truth of Gideon, as his murders will be revealed later to the reader.

“[Kate] does. She sees. Could she? It was dangerous, for both of us, if she did. But it was there. I saw it, and we both knew. It was a violation, a lifeline, a probe pushing somewhere tender and protected, fleshy and vulnerable. I hated it. I wanted more. I was shaken and confused.”

As Maeve describes how it feels to have Kate see her for who she is—a thing that has happened only a few times in their years of friendship—she juxtaposes positive and negative words to reflect her uncertainty over how she feels. Kate’s insight into her character is both a “violation” and a “lifeline,” something she “hates” but “wants more” of. These conflicting feelings convey how Maeve feels: She longs to have someone truly understand her, but she fears how they will react.

“When I am maybe twenty feet away, she slowly turns to face me and smiles a Pennywise smile. She is pretty, perhaps even younger than I thought before. Neither of us moves for a long moment, and then all at once, she turns and walks away.”

When Maeve first sees the girl who is planting the dolls for her, she describes her look as a “Pennywise smile.” This is a reference to Stephen King’s 1986 novel It. The primary villain is an evil entity that often takes the form of a killer clown known as Pennywise. It corrupts an entertaining, humorous character—a clown—and turns him into a murderer, instilling a sense of fear in Its victims. This metaphor, which compares the girl to Pennywise, emphasizes the duality that Maeve feels about the dolls. She is awed by them, and in some ways, they make her happy, as they reflect her darker side and imply that someone truly knows her. However, she is also disgusted by them, just as the characters in It are haunted by Pennywise.

“‘I’m just saying,’ Gideon says. ‘You’re not alone, Maeve.’ The wolf whines, the monkey tilts its head. That feeling that is not rage and is not terror and is only partly made of sadness ripples through me, churns low in my belly and up through my breast. That something new, a different ache.”

The motif of Maeve’s monkey and wolf battling within her is further developed as Gideon expresses his feelings and his support to Maeve. She has found a physical and emotional connection with Gideon, something that speaks to both parts of her personality: the wolf’s rage and the monkey’s ability to fit into society. This is a “different ache” for Maeve, as she considers the possibility of being able to embrace both parts of who she is—at least in the presence of Gideon.

“I rinse my mouth in her sink and see a girl in the mirror who is cracking. A girl who believed she could hold it all together.”

As Maeve oversleeps at Gideon’s house and thereby jeopardizes her grandmother’s health by not giving her medication, the image of herself that she sees in the mirror is a metaphor for the duality of Maeve’s life. She has finally found happiness and comfort through Gideon, yet she believes she was punished for her attempts to be happy through her grandmother’s suffering. She feels as though two versions of Maeve exist: the one who cares for her grandmother and the one who builds a life of Maeve. What she fails to understand, in seeing these two as separate identities, is how to combine the two and allow both to exist. This is metaphorically represented by the second, separate Maeve that she sees in the mirror.

“A way of life that is not quiet or secret or tucked away. How silly of me. How silly of us, to think we must do in shadow what men do in the light. What they have always done. How blind I have been.”

When Maeve finds the book American Psycho, bathed in light, she thinks of it as a sign to embrace the violent nature within her. She interprets Ellis’s novel as an example of a societal double standard: Men are permitted to be violent and evil “in the light,” while women are forced to do so secretly and “in shadow.” In essence, men as villains in stories—such as Bateman—are openly violent and dangerous, while women are often portrayed as sly and secretive. While Maeve—following her grandmother’s advice—has tried to keep her violence secret, she realizes that she can act as men do and embrace who she is instead of hiding it.

“He is calling. When I told him not to call. When I thought that he would and then…Again, that thing, that spiny shredding thing moves in me, a feeling dangerously like hope, like want, like…It turns to rage. That I should feel anything but rage fills me with even more of it, fuels a fire that I now realize will never be extinguished.”

When Maeve is about to kill Liv, her phone rings, and she realizes that Gideon is calling her. For a moment, the act provides the reader with hope that Maeve will go back to him instead of continuing down her new path of violence. However, these hopes are quickly squashed when she responds to his phone call with rage. Her hope now only makes her even angrier, showing how far into rage Maeve has fallen. She is now unwilling and unable to give in to her personal connection with Gideon, throwing it and her public persona away to embrace her rage.

“My eyes find themselves in the mirror. These eyes the last thing the band saw, the last thing Liz and Andre saw, the last thing the girl with the dolls will ever see. Blood on my face like war paint. I look more like myself than I ever have. To think I ever fought this. To think I would ever want to hide it.”

This scene, in which Maeve looks at herself in the mirror while she has sex with Johnny in the bar bathroom, parallels the earlier scene where she looked in the mirror after deciding to break things off with Gideon. Now, instead of seeing two separate Maeves reflected in the mirror, she sees only herself. She has finally allowed the one version of herself—the hidden, rageful version—to take over, casting aside the other Maeve that she has always used as a public persona.

“Hollywood has traditionally given us so few iconic female horror villains, and nearly all of them became what they were after being brutalized by men or possessed by male demons.”

When Maeve sees that Kate is dressed as Linda Blair from The Exorcist, she thinks of it as a decent villain costume—even though Linda is only a villain because she is “possessed by a male demon.” Maeve’s thoughts emphasize the gendered nature of villainy in popular narrative, as she calls attention to the fact that villains in movies are almost entirely men. Maeve’s story, then, is a subversion of this idea, as she is a female villain who acts openly and violently, going against the stereotypes that are so prevalent throughout storytelling.

“I shouldn’t spend time with him, the man who is making my career and giving me what I have always wanted because he isn’t good? What, and you’re good, Maeve? You’re some paragon of virtue?”

Although Kate does not fully understand the violent things that Maeve has done, her words are ironic in their assessment of Maeve’s actions. While Maeve wants to believe that she is “good” as she tortures Derek to protect and avenge Kate, she ignores the fact that she has also tortured innocent people, including women. Her hypocrisy is ironic, as she believes that she is making the world a better place—while in turn bringing violence and hatred into it.