Mystic River

In Chapter 22, Jimmy’s dream suggests his anxiety and guilt over a past crime and alludes to a significant connection between Jimmy, Just Ray, and Katie—the three of them inexplicably linked by the Mystic River that epitomizes Jimmy’s unspoken crimes. In the dream, Jimmy makes shrewd observations that he himself cannot decipher; Dave’s oversized, swollen hand proves that the injury concerns Jimmy and suggests that his subconscious perceives it to be meaningful; Celeste’s mouth closed with a zipper conveys that Jimmy suspects her of keeping quiet about something. Katie and Just Ray, though, are associated through their interaction with the river: Both stare into it because Katie has dropped her dress, and Just Ray is fishing it out for her. Katie assures her father that Just Ray will get the dress because “[h]e’s a hunting fish” (96).

The dream alludes to Jimmy’s connection to Just Ray; fish pop out of his mouth to suggest that Ray is under water, “hunting” or pursuing Jimmy. Therefore, the dream reveals that Jimmy put Just Ray in the river and is haunted by his crime and the thought that this murder will come back to harm him. The second significant moment in Chapter 22 is Dave’s invigoration from murder, which presents violence as the greatest form and source of power: “In killing someone, he’d killed that weak part of himself, that freak who had lain in him since he was eleven years old” (306). Because Dave became irrevocably powerless at a young age because of his assault, killing someone allows him to reclaim agency. The act itself is symbolic: Having once been victimized, Dave finds strength in victimizing another.

However, Dave’s newfound strength proves feeble in Chapter 23 as his resolve crumbles. This posits that his power fails because it was never real to begin with. Dave’s emotional decline represents more than the weight of his crimes: It foreshadows his death. Rather than obsessing over going to jail for murder, Dave is filled with the “dread” that he will “die soon and die badly” (320). Whether it is from guilt or the understanding that his life as he knew it will be over if he’s found out, Dave’s trepidation comes soon after Jimmy is told about Dave being picked up by the police. Therefore, the novel alludes to a coming conflict between Dave and Jimmy. 

The importance of loyalty to the characters within this community is at the forefront of Chapter 24. Celeste expresses her suspicions to Jimmy, not the police, about Dave because “the only thing that could protect you from something dangerous in the neighborhood was the neighborhood itself” (224). This reveals that Celeste knows the exact consequences of telling Jimmy that Dave killed Katie. However, Celeste’s suspicions are immediately proven wrong by Dave’s admission of killing the pedophile in the Cadillac; considering Dave’s explanation, her act of misplaced loyalty is instead betrayal, one that sentences Dave to death.

Chapter 24’s account of Dave’s true crime absolves Dave of Katie’s murder and displays the lasting and damaging psychological effects of childhood trauma. In Dave’s case, his trauma has resulted in a lifetime of self-doubt, self-loathing, and confusion. Most damaging to his character and sense of morality, though, are Dave’s own pedophilic urges. It is not, however, that trauma itself that causes these urges and need for violent release; but stems from the repression of his emotions and an inability to productively work through what happened to him. Now, Dave’s anger over his life has reached a boiling point. When he attacks the pedophile on that Saturday night, it is the Boy, “feeling the wolf, hating this man” (335) that needs revenge.

Dave’s act is also an impulsive and naïve form of heroism: “He wanted to tell the red-haired kid that he’d done this for him. He’d saved him. And he would protect him forever if that’s what he wanted” (335). In the red-haired child, Dave sees himself and wants to save this child from Dave’s own suffering. Stronger than his noble motivations, though, is his shame: he wants to see himself “as a man who was trying his damnedest to slay the vampire in his soul” (337). This reveals Dave’s overwhelming motivation for the murder was to metaphorically kill the part of him that aligned with the man in the Cadillac. After committing this murder and believing he’ll actually get away with it, he begins to feel renewed—he can plan a new life for himself and his family, one away from his darkness. However, Jimmy’s impending justice permeates Dave’s hopeful thoughts. As Val pulls up and asks Dave to eat and drink with him, the novel mirrors Dave’s fateful encounter 25 years ago on Gannon Street. Dave, still naïve ad needing to please, gets into another car with another dangerous man.