The Butcher Game

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, graphic violence, child abuse, and mental illness.

Images of anatomically correct hearts—and physical hearts themselves—become a motif that informs the theme of Power and Obsession. 

In The Butcher and the Wren, Wren’s anatomical heart bracelet is a symbol of Jeremy’s obsessive nature in particular and the obsessive nature of serial killers in general. In The Butcher Game, Jeremy carves the image of Wren’s bracelet into the wrist of one of the Tytus Mansion victims. When Wren looks at the photograph of the victim, she notes, “The heart is cut to reveal the raw dermis layer. Red, like a heart should be. It’s all so artistic and repugnant. It’s Jeremy. It’s the perfect dichotomy of beauty and horror, just like him” (188). While hearts typically represent love, Jeremy transforms this symbol into a gruesome reminder of the horrors of his shared past with Wren. He believes that they have an almost magical emotional connection as victim and murderer, and he wants Wren to be as fixated on him as he is on her.

Jeremy’s next use of the heart motif is even more chilling: After killing Jenna, he dissects her corpse, takes out the heart, and leaves it on the boat as another clue to Wren.