50 pages • 1 hour read
Alaina UrquhartThe Butcher and the Wren
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Smell of Decay
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses graphic violence and potentially disturbing themes related to a serial killer and his crimes.
The smell of decay is a symbol that represents Jeremy’s presence and influence. The two notable moments during which the smell of decomposition is overwhelming is at the jazz festival and at the raid on Jeremy’s property. At the jazz festival, Wren smells the decay “all at once, like an unpredictable hemorrhage” (107). It takes the others a little longer to pick up the scent, which demonstrates Wren’s close connection to Jeremy and her sensitivity to his presence that the other law enforcement officials lack. The smell indicates that Jeremy is present, or was not long ago, and his influence remains, due to the rotting body he left beneath one of the stages.
The smell of decay appears again when the police raid Jeremy’s property. He unplugged the freezer to let the body in the basement start to rot intentionally. When Wren and the others arrive, the scent is overwhelming, which hints at Jeremy’s presence on the property, lying in wait. It also emphasizes Jeremy’s influence and control over the setting, which results in his ability to escape.
The Spine
The spine is a symbol of The Dangers of a Controlling Nature throughout the narrative. In his monologue about “C5, stay alive” (129), he tries to make Wren/Emily answer his anatomical questions to make her realize that her control over herself—her right to self-determination—is slipping through her fingers. The link between the understanding of anatomy and control is strong in that scene; Jeremy acts like a biology lecturer, sharing the specifics of the spine with Wren/Emily, who functions in the scene as the unwilling student, a mockery of a student-teacher relationship that carries a power imbalance. Jeremy’s attempt at paralyzing Wren/Emily with the stab to her lumbar spine represents his attempt at taking control of her.
Jeremy manages to take full control over Emma and the victim he stores in his freezer. He stabs both of those women in the spine and severs both spines at the C6 vertebra, rendering them paralyzed. He also murders both women, successfully taking their lives away from them in the way he failed to with Wren/Emily.
The Bracelet
The anatomical heart bracelet is a symbol that represents the obsessive psychology of serial killers. Jeremy fixates on the bracelet during the biology lecture and makes the extra effort during the abduction of Wren/Emily to retrieve it from the ground in the parking lot. He keeps the bracelet for seven years until he leaves it on Emma’s body for Wren to find. Jeremy’s obsession with the bracelet is indicative of his obsession with Wren.
When the bracelet reappears, Wren is immediately transported to the past and into her memories of her heinous ordeal in the bayou. It confirms her fears that the Butcher is back, which was Jeremy’s intention. However, it does give her an investigative edge, as she has a better foothold on Jeremy’s modus operandi and methodologies, having survived her encounter with him. His obsession is a crack in his armor, as is his hubris and belief that he is impossible to catch. Though he does escape, in his attempt to draw Wren close to him due to his obsessive tendencies, he is nearly caught.
The Bayou
The bayou serves as both setting and symbol in this novel. It is the location of many of Jeremy’s murders and body dumps, but it also symbolizes death and decay. Jeremy feels most at home in the bayou, both when he is “hunting” and when he is listening to the “noises he craves” that come from the bayou around his house (3). When he is pursuing Wren/Emily, he refers to the sounds of the bayou as an “organic symphony” and states that the bayou is “working in tandem” with him to catch Wren/Emily (122, 127). He also says that the bayou has “bent to his will” when he recaptures and stabs Wren/Emily, further showing his connection with the bayou (130). This mirrors his comfort with both death and decay.
As a serial killer, Jeremy is more than comfortable with death; it is something that thrills and exhilarates him. Decay is also something he surrounds himself with, particularly in the bodies he keeps in his house and on his property in various states of decomposition. He is neither afraid nor disgusted by the sights and smells associated with rotting, decaying corpses, just as he is neither afraid nor disgusted by the swampy bayou. Wren, on the other hand, may have a familiarity with dead bodies due to her job, but it is not a sense of comfort. She finds the bayou and its water “murky” and “foul-smelling (12). It is also the scene of her horrifying torture at the hands of Jeremy, and her escape from the bayou mirrors her escape from death and eventual decay.
