False Witness

For Callie, animals are a source of calm, comfort, and protection in the book. She is prone to taking in strays and works at a veterinary clinic; it’s clear she regards the animal world as a refuge from the traumas she has experienced. The comforting nature of the animal world is embodied in human form by Callie’s employer, Dr. Jerry, the kind-hearted veterinarian who looks the other way when Callie steals from him and always gives her a job, even when she disappears for months on end. The fact that Dr. Jerry, the human embodiment of Callie’s dear animal friends, is the person who equips Callie with her deadly weapon against Andrew/Trevor thus becomes even more poignant. It’s through her animal friend that Callie is able to tame the real beast: Andrew/Trevor.

This is the book’s argument—in the world of women, it’s not animals that pose the greatest threat, but men. Men are presented as the real animals—wild, untamed, violent—and indeed, Andrew/Trevor is frequently likened to an animal. Callie, talking to Dr. Jerry, refers to him as a dog. Later, Callie thinks about killing Andrew/Trevor in terms of putting him down—language normally used for animals, not people. Even her method of killing him reflects his animal nature: She administers a fatal dose of a drug used to euthanize animals at the veterinary clinic. Even Andrew/Trevor’s mother, Linda, refers to him as an animal when she says, “I’m thanking you, Harleigh Collier. As far as I’m concerned, you put one animal down for me. Your sister put down the other” (433).