55 pages • 1 hour read
John MarrsThe One
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A 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
Christopher’s Kill Kit
Christopher’s kill kit includes his murder weapon and clean-up supplies. At the end of Christopher’s storyline, after he dies, the point of view shifts from Christopher to Amy. She has just used Christopher’s own murder weapon—the cheese wire garrote—to kill him. She then cleans up the murder scene with supplies from the kit. This symbolizes the fact that she, much as she tries to deny it, shares his ability to kill in cold blood. She isn’t motivated by emotion as Ellie is when she kills Tim, nor does she desire attention like Christopher. Amy coolly recognizes a social responsibility to eliminate a threat to public safety. Christopher will always threaten that safety. Even if she could keep him in check, if anything happened to her, he might revert to his former behavior. In addition to the public safety issue, she ultimately can’t trust him not to harm her if theirs is one of the false Matches, and if his crimes are discovered, her career will be ruined, so her motive is partially self-interested.
Deception Creating Conflict
The perfect soulmate eliminates one source of story conflict—differences of personality and learning to love and understand another person. Marrs instead uses the motif of deception to create the conflict necessary to explore his premise. This is an element of chance that undermines the certainty promised by Match Your DNA: You must take the risk of Matching with someone who lies to you. In each storyline, someone conceals something about their motives or their identity, and this deception drives the story. The implication is that even in the best of circumstances, we create our own problems. Match Your DNA can never solve the real conflicts between people, because it cannot eradicate human deception or purify human motives.
Personal Responsibility
Personal responsibility underlies the theme of moral love. Each of the protagonists must choose whether to take responsibility for their actions, and their reward or punishment extends from their decisions. Ellie rejects responsibility for the harm her technology has done, and she will probably end up in prison. Nick assumes responsibility for Sally and their child and is rewarded with his true love and the child he adores—and even if Sally hadn’t died, he might have redeemed some happiness simply in his paternal relationship to Dylan. Amy realizes that she will never be able to trust Christopher, and she takes responsibility for protecting society from him. Mandy stops letting other people and unrealistic fantasies control her actions. Jade finally pursues her dreams instead of feeling resentful and bitter. In each case, happiness depends not on finding a soulmate but on embracing personal agency.
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By John Marrs
