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I should have said no. Every time, I wanted to say no. I knew it was the right thing to tell him to leave me alone, but he’d already been snubbed by our classmates a hundred times over. How could I say no?
So that’s what happened with Dimitri and Joe and Kevin and Noble and Marcus and C.J. Every time I went over to his house thinking this time I could avoid it, this time I wouldn’t be tempted.
At the beginning of the novel Maren is horrified by her own cannibalism. Although she is a cannibal, her cannibalistic urges are, she claims, compulsive and automatic. Maren, then, is aware of the stark conflict between her actions and her own moral values, which are relatively conventional. Despite her strong feelings of guilt and shame, however, Maren is not able to control her urges. Whenever a boy gets too close to her, she is unable to stop herself from killing and consuming him. In fact, she is barely conscious of the event itself, usually regaining consciousness only after the attack is over. An important question raised in the novel, then, is the degree of moral responsibility that Maren bears for her own actions. Though she is responsible for the deaths of at least six other children, these murders, she claims, are committed against her own free will. However, Maren’s self-justifications are occasionally unpersuasive or even self-serving. When an unpopular young boy at school invites her to his home, she accepts the invitation despite knowing the risk that she poses to him, arguing unconvincingly that she felt it would be unkind to decline his invitation. Further, Maren’s language mirrors that of an addict, insisting that “this time” things will go differently, despite her long history of cannibalism. Later, Maren acknowledges to herself that her belief that she can “avoid” her urges through willpower is mistaken.
All thoughts of finding my dad drifted out of my head like the smoke from Andy’s cigarette. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it—to take one step into the road and let the next truck rid the world of me? The driver wouldn't even be hurt, and no one would blame him. They’d be able to tell I wasn’t hit from behind.
After being abandoned while hitch-hiking, Maren seeks refuge in a Walmart store. Having spent her small amount of money helping to split the cost of gas, she is forced to shoplift a can of chickpeas and a sandwich, despite feeling guilty for doing so. Her theft is witnessed by an employee of the story, a young man named Andy, who doesn’t report her shoplifting and even offers to help her, providing her with additional food and the promise of a couch on which to sleep. Though grateful, Maren is unable to control her cannibalistic urges when Andy kisses her, and she murders and consumes him. Afterwards, her feelings of loneliness are compounded by her guilt over killing the one person who has offered to help her. She realizes that she will never be able to control her cannibalistic urges and foresees a long list of future victims who might pay the price for attempting to get close to her. Distraught, and feeling that it is unethical for her to continue to live at the expense of others, she feels that the only responsible choice available to her is to commit suicide, an action which she feels would “rid the world” of a dangerous person such as herself. She walks in front of a truck driving at a high-speed the highway, though she is pushed out of the way by Lee, an eater who has witnessed her cannibalization of Andy.
“I got such a rush. Every time I do it, I get a rush. I knew anyone else would think it was wrong, but I still felt like some weird new kind of superhero.”
We drove in silence for a minute or two before I said, “If I have to be like this, I wish I could be like you.”
“It’s not that different.”
I stared at him. “It’s completely different.”
“They’re different. But you like it as much as I do.”
When Maren meets Sully and then Lee, she is happy to discover that she is not the only eater in the world, and that there are others who can understand and sympathize with her position. However, Maren soon discovers that there are also important differences between eaters. Sully, for example, only eats those who are already deceased, and Maren recognizes with a pang of guilt that, unlike her, he has no “victims.” Similarly, Lee is able to exert a far greater degree of control over his cannibalism than Maren, choosing only to eat those who have wronged him in some way. His first victim, for example, is a cruel and physically abusive baby-sitter. Because he feels that he only kills those who deserve to be killed, Lee feels like a “new kind of superhero,” who can use his abilities on behalf of the weak. Maren falls silent after hearing about Lee’s history of cannibalism, reflecting upon what she believes to be the significant ethical distinction between them. They are, she feels, “completely different,” as he is able to put his cannibalism to good use, where she has no control over her urges, and in fact, only ever eats those who have attempted to get close to her. She argues that she wishes that she could be more like Lee, but Lee dismisses her position. Where she attempts to mark a distinction between morally permissible and impermissible forms of cannibalism, Lee insists that their actions are morally equivalent, as they both “like” committing cannibalism equally, and that the desire for human flesh is inherently immoral, regardless of intention or outcome.
