My Heart Is a Chainsaw

“Real final girls only want the horror to be over. They don’t stay up late praying to Craven and Carpenter to send one of their savage angels down, just for a weekend maybe.”

Alluding to famous horror movie directors Wes Craven and John Carpenter, Jade suggests that her devotion to slasher films is like a religion. Jade’s remark about angels employs irony, as she is referring to “monstrous” antagonists like Freddy Krueger, Ghostface, or Michael Myers. Through this parallel between horror and religion, Jade implies that she lacks the moral virtues required to be a final girl, instead implying an ethical framework drawn from her ironic subversion of Christian religion.

“Letha Mondragon is embarrassed, not of the profanity, but that it even has to exist. Because that’s the kind of pure she is.”

When Letha notices the graffiti reading “skank station” above the bathroom mirror that Jade is using, Jade notices that Letha appears distressed. However, the italics denote that she assumes Letha is not just upset because of the crude term “skank” but because Letha is so pure of heart that she cannot understand why others would insult one another in this way. This characterizes Letha as kind without being self-righteous, confirming Jade’s belief that she has what it takes to be a hero.

“To put it in conclusion, sir, final girls are the vessel we keep all our hope in.”

In one of Jade’s extra credit assignments to Mr. Holmes, she defines the role of the “final girl” in a horror narrative, expressing admiration for these powerful female figures. The prose in these sections switches to first person, with frequent direct addresses to Mr. Holmes such as “sir.” Jade’s description of the final girl implies an allusion to the story of Pandora from Greek mythology. Pandora was a woman who supposedly opened a vessel containing all the world’s evils, releasing everything except for hope. The final girl is the vessel that contained hope when all the other evils were released upon the world by Pandora, signifying that she is the only defense that mankind possesses.

“Jade can hardly help smiling. Best graduation present ever.”

As Jade becomes convinced that a killer is coming to enact a slasher movie upon her town, her emotional reactions are the opposite of expectation. Rather than feeling afraid or upset at the prospect of a murderer coming to Proofrock, she smiles and thinks of it as a gift to celebrate her graduation. Verbal irony such as this is used for comedic effect throughout the novel, suggesting that Jade’s unique appreciation for things that frighten other people is one of the reasons why she does not feel connected to her peers.

“Some roving Cenobite got its pound of flesh, and then the rest of the pounds of flesh as well.”

Jade demonstrates the depth of her cultural knowledge by combining an allusion to William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice with an allusion to the film Hellraiser (1987). The pound of flesh refers to moneylender Shylock’s demand for recompense when the merchant Antonio defaults on a loan, while the cenobites are a group of extra-dimensional, torture-loving zealots. This comedic combination of references to high and low culture characterizes Jade as someone who frames all experience through the lens of fiction, combining genres and quotes with a sardonic and playful tone.

“If you only knew, Mom, Jade sends across to her. I’m not really graduating. This is all fake for me. Which is to say: it’s a fitting end for her high school career.”

As Jade sees her mother attending her high school graduation, she confesses to her that she is not actually graduating in her mind. Jade and Kimmy never talk to one another throughout the novel, but here Jade addresses her mother as though she was speaking to her. Similarly, Kimmy has no reason to attend the graduation other than Jade, but she does not acknowledge or speak to her at the ceremony. Jade’s confession that her graduation is fake, just a visual spectacle without real meaning, indicates that Jade is unable to communicate with her mother due to the traumatic secret family that they are both covering up.

“Yes, in the months and years to come, our stories of this momentous day will become just that—stories—but for this, for right now, for the moment we’re in, perhaps we can, as a group, understand just what it is that’s happening here.”

In Mr. Holmes’s graduation speech, he uses repetition to rhetorically emphasize the division between past and present. By calling attention to the multiple meanings of the word “story,” Mr. Holmes reminds his audience that recollections of the past eventually seem more like fiction than real memories. This observation relates to the theme of slasher films: the past returns to seek retribution, and the only way to stop it is to uncover the original crime.

“Maybe all the hatred balled up inside her has started sending tendrils out into her thinking, to blacken her thoughts, dim her perception of the actual world. If she starts seeing tracking lines in the sky, that’s when she’ll know, she tells herself.”

Figurative language connects Jade’s repressed anger to the visual image of a dark plant growing over the world, separating her from reality. The image of “tendrils” spreading out from within her suggests that her hatred is like a parasitic organism that impacts how she perceives everything. Jade mentions tracking lines, which were used in VHS tapes to keep a film in focus, suggesting that Jade fears her obsession with old films is distorting her mind.

“I was in the gas station for the bathroom while my mom was having a conversation with herself in the car about will she won’t she and then this movie was in the bargain bin like trash. But let me tell you it wasn’t.”

This enigmatic line from a letter that Jade writes to Letha is reinterpreted several times throughout the novel. It appears to be an accidental confession, one that Jade did not even realize she was making. Letha interprets the “will she won’t she” to mean that Jade’s mother was considering reporting her father for raping Jade. Jade later tells Mr. Holmes that her mother was questioning “will she” be a grandmother before she is 30, as they were going to the doctor to determine if Jade was pregnant. The sentence goes on to describe Jade finding her first slasher movie at the gas station. The simile of the film being treated “like trash,” also applies to Jade in this moment, representing how her love for horror films is related to her processing trauma.

“Is this it then? It this where she gets busted, hauled into the place she already is, her mask ripped off?”

Using two rhetorical questions, Jade compares herself to the antagonist in a slasher film, when she is the one investigating and trying to uncover the killer. Jade has gone to the sheriff’s office to try to gather evidence about the recent murder of Deacon Samuels and fears that Meg Koenig, Hardy’s assistant, will realize that she has stolen an audio file. However, she ironically still sees herself as an antagonist, rather than a hero, imagining that if she is caught, she will be “unmasked” like the killer in a slasher film.

“He’s looking back, his free hand clamped tight on the tailgate, his lips pressed together, his eyes for all the world pleading with her, as if he’s being abducted, just needs someone to say something about it.”

Jade sees some local boys she went to high school with leaving to attempt to hunt the bear that has been blamed for the death of Deacon Samuels. However, the young men appear afraid, reversing the normal dynamic between hunter and prey. This reversal adds to the unsettling atmosphere and ominous tone of the novel.

“Nothing just pops into existence. Everything comes from somewhere. It’s all got a story. Just a matter of it we’re committed enough to dig it up.”

In her conversation with Mr. Holmes, Jade attests to the value of learning history by metaphorically comparing it to exhumation. History, like a buried body, can be covered up and forgotten. Historical research, therefore, seems like a grim and often disturbing task, revealing things that might be disgusting to see.

“THE LAKE WITCH SLAYINGS. That’s definitely what they’re going to call it the morning after, when all the bodies are floating facedown in the water, blood blooming out from their sides like wings.”

Jade’s graffiti, stylistically rendered in all capital letters, attempts to give a name to the violent confrontation she predicts will occur on July Fourth. Giving the massacre a name is a way to lend meaning to the event, making it a part of a narrative that Jade can predict and control through her knowledge of horror films. Jade uses a simile when she imagines the violence, comparing the blood flowing from a corpse to wings. This image resembles an angel, mixing the aesthetics of the divine with the aesthetics of gore to underscore the theme of horror as a form of religion.

“She’s a coaster, a rider, and where do people who go with the flow always end up? The drain, yes.”

The novel plays with idiomatic language, combining the two commonplace phrases “go with the flow” and “circling the drain” to suggest that Jade’s lack of ambition will ruin her life. This attitude connects to Jade’s impression that her traumatic past and her Indigenous heritage disqualify her from the role of heroic final girl. When she is later trapped beneath the pile of rotting elk, she returns to the image of the drain, imagining that she is finally going down one.

“She’s moving through the hidden parts, the connective tissue. The real guts, the actual terra nova.”

The process of investigating local events and history is metaphorically portrayed as exploring the interior of the human body. Figurative language underscores the gory and possibly disgusting things that such an investigation will uncover. By calling the town’s secrets and, by extension, its guts, terra nova (the Latin phrase for “new world”), Jones implies that finding a “new world” is an inherently violent act. Just as European explorers enacted violence upon Indigenous communities when they came to North America, Jade’s exploration of her hometown harms its peace and stability.

“It was stupid, would be a boring art house film were it on-screen, two kids mumbling in the afterglow of a killing because they’re both too shy to hold hands, but it had been pretty perfect too.”

Instead of referencing her usual favorite genre, slasher films, Jade compares the night she spends with Shooting Glasses to a “boring art house film.” The change in genres signifies that her relationship with Shooting Glasses is devoid of the usual terror and moralistic violence that she perceives elsewhere in the world. While Jade loves horror as a genre, she admits that his night “had been pretty perfect too,” indicating that she is learning to enjoy experiences that are not exclusively dark and frightening.

“It climbs, it climbs, and, just when it should be lodging in Letha’s chest, instead her hand stabs out as only a final girl’s can, and catches that machete by the handle as perfect as anything, so perfect that Jade hardly even feels it when Hardy tackles her.”

This sentence uses repetition and anaphora to build up a rhythm, creating a sense of suspense before Letha catches the machete. The final clause is a paraprosdokian, a rhetorical device wherein a sentence has an unexpected and surprising twist at the end. This creates a comedic and dramatic effect, showing how Jade’s excitement that Letha is embracing her role as the final girl is so powerful that she is unbothered by being tackled by the sheriff for throwing a weapon.

“The body’s gonna do what the body’s gonna do, and screams aren’t at all voluntary.”

By modifying the idiom “a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,” this sentence transforms the original sentence’s encouraging sentiment into a message of involuntary physical limitations. The use of repetition creates a darkly humorous tone, indicating that people cannot easily overcome their instinctive survival responses during a frightening encounter. While Jade has always criticized girls who scream in horror movies, she now understands that this is an uncontrollable reaction rather than an illogical and ridiculous cinematic trope.

“Cody’s pressed into the meat and bone to Letha’s left, and Mismatched Gloves is impaled on sweeping antlers to her right, one of the tips coming out through his mouth, the velvet horn dark black with gore, now.”

The syntax of this sentence blends together the murdered bodies of the human construction workers with the bodies of the elk, indicating the dehumanizing effect of violence. Theo Mondragon can kill these people because he does not consider them like humans, but rather like animals who can be used for meat. This image underscores the violence of economic inequality, showing how Theo’s immense wealth has resulted in a lack of empathy for those outside of his social class.

“Everything’s working out. It doesn’t smell good, it’s dangerous as hell and twice as hot, but it’s also just what Letha needs in order to become her truest self.”

Jade’s thoughts as she shelters inside of a pile of rotting elk carcasses ironically reinterpret the situation as positive. Her optimistic attitude calls attention to how the extremely adverse conditions she and Letha find themselves in will be critical to the narrative journey she perceives Letha to be undergoing. This provides an example of how Jade’s obsession with slasher film plotlines is distorting her perspective on reality, causing her to view bad circumstances as the necessary prelude to better ones.

“Slasher movies are supposed to be these grand fairy tales where the princess is a bad-ass warrior, but Jade never showed Letha that, did she? She never showed her anything, really.”

In a moment of despair when Jade believes she will die beneath the decomposing elk, she alludes to a new genre of fiction: fairy tales. Comparing a slasher film to a fairy tale is unusual, as fairy tales are typically seen as being for an audience of children while slasher films are regulated for adults only. However, Jade points out that both have similar plot structures and didactic morals, depicting monsters being defeated by warriors. This mixture of genres suggests that Jade’s love of slashers developed when she was a child and seeking out stories that would empower her in the same way that other children are drawn to fairy tales.

“Instead, Jade takes the handle of the machete in both hands, knows this is a one-shot-only thing, and slice from right to left with everything she’s been holding inside for the last six years, with every ounce of anger and rejection, all the unfairness and resentment, and she hears herself screaming exactly like a final girl does when she does it, and it’s not even on purpose, it’s just coming, it’s pure rage, it’s having so much inside that it’s got to come out, she’s Constance in Just Before Dawn, she’s finally turning around to fight, is insisting on her own life, is refusing to die, isn’t going to take even one more moment of abuse, and, and—.”

Jade’s attempt to kill Stacey Graves uses a long, run-on structure and repetition to convey her overwhelmed and emotionally charged state of mind. The prose style mimics the building mental pressure that she faces as she lets out her repressed anger and resentment. Jones ends the sentence with a dash rather than a full stop, suggesting that the tension is abruptly cut off rather than resolved. Because the machete strike fails to substantially harm Stacey Graves, the sudden ending of the sentence disrupts the rhythm and creates a jarring feeling.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die.”

This sentence uses a casual, light-hearted tone to contrast with the dark subject matter. In the same flippant way that people deliver criticism, the narration uses verbal irony to suggest the resiliency of young girls. While young women are often considered particularly vulnerable and delicate, Letha can survive having her jaw broken and rescue Jade from drowning, attesting to their power and strength.