In “Killings,” the “love triangle” killing of Matt’s son Frank is depicted on a grand scale so that the reader sees it as a heinous crime against the natural order. Nature is such an important motif in the story that it becomes a justification for the revenge murder of Strout. The story opens at the graveside service for Frank where Matt looks across the Merrimac River and sees an apple orchard with “its symmetrically planted...
In “Killings,” the “love triangle” killing of Matt’s son Frank is depicted on a grand scale so that the reader sees it as a heinous crime against the natural order. Nature is such an important motif in the story that it becomes a justification for the revenge murder of Strout. The story opens at the graveside service for Frank where Matt looks across the Merrimac River and sees an apple orchard with “its symmetrically planted trees going up a hill.” Surrounded by the rest of his offspring, Matt knows that the order of his own “orchard” has been destroyed. His son’s murder means a tree that will never bear fruit.
Later, as Matt comes to the decision to kill Strout, he reflects on fatherhood with his children and recalls how the natural world enabled him to fulfill his instinctive role as a father. As they swam in the sea, climbed the high oak, and skated on the ice, he was there to protect them from all harm. His grief then takes on the very form of nature and is embodied in a “huge wave” that “swept him out to sea.”
As Matt and Willis kidnap Strout and take him away to be killed, nature continues to justify the murder by providing the cover and darkness they need to dispose of the body. Leaves fall to cover the hole and tall trees block the moon as they kill Strout and bury the body. The smooth water swallows the gun that they throw in; the ripples “lap softly” but there are no waves or signs from nature that they have committed a crime. The disruption, silence, and complicity of the natural world have helped to rationalize the revenge killing.
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