Let the Right One In

Near the end of the narrative, a British reporter explains why he believes the public remains fascinated with the search for Håkan: “It’s a search for the archetypal Monster. This man’s appearance, what he’s done. He is The Monster, the evil at the heart of all fairy tales. And every time we catch it, we like to pretend it’s over for good” (340). Håkan represents all the fears of humankind made flesh. He’s also a pedophile and a murderer. Despite his sins, he manages to cheat death several times due to the infection from Eli’s bite coursing through his veins. As an Archetypal Monster, Håkan is like the myth of Frankenstein. Humankind couldn’t stand Frankenstein’s existence because it viewed his existence as an affront to God. The villagers therefore set out to destroy the monster and, in doing so, eased their fears of the superhuman.

Likewise, Håkan not only represents the supernatural, he transgresses moral law by sexual involvement with minors and murdering innocent people. Lindqvist depicts Håkan in monstrous, disgusting terms for most of the narrative, from Håkan’s love of little boys to his hypersexualized existence as a creepy-looking zombie with one eye and an engorged penis. Håkan represents fear, a fear of the unknown and a fear of what one doesn’t want to know. By focusing hate and negative energy on Håkan and his capture, the public—and police—can sleep safer knowing that there is a name and a face to fear. This makes fear less monstrous. Despite history repeating itself, people let their guard down once monsters like Håkan disappear, not realizing that evil in this sense is pervasive.

Many of the teen and pre-teen characters in Let the Right One In suffer from broken families. Oskar, for instance, lives with his mother in Blackeberg, while his father lives far away in Södervik. Oskar’s mother views his father as childish, and his father has a drinking problem. Though Oskar loves his father, he calls his dad a werewolf whenever his father gets drunk because he turns into a scary person: “Oskar lay in bed, waiting for the Werewolf. He felt the inside of his chest churning with rage, despair” (255). The narrative makes clear that Oskar loves his father. He even gets happy when he thinks his father will discipline him about behavioral issues. Moreover, Oskar envisions his father as the ideal man. When his father drinks and breaks his trust, however, Oskar leaves, effectively abandoning what he considers to be a role model in favor of Eli. When Oskar overhears his mother and father arguing later, he flees the house to avoid the confrontation.

Tommy also suffers from a broken family, although his father dies before the narrative from cancer. Tommy misses his father, yet he also fears his father a little because, when younger, he thought his father would return as a zombie. Tommy seems obsessed with the dead staying dead, the past neatly and clearly delineated from the present, throughout the narrative, which makes his fight with a zombified Håkan all the more traumatic (he envisions his father come back to haunt him). Tommy, who lives with his mother, also acts out at home. He takes an instant dislike to his mother’s fiancé, Staffan, because Tommy feels Staffan wants to replace his father. Tommy’s mother, Yvonne, is at her wit’s end with Tommy’s bad behavior, but she knows he is hurting so she doesn’t press Tommy.

Jonny and Jimmy, two bullies who threaten, also suffer from a broken family. Jonny’s father left when he was too young to remember, although the older Jimmy remembers their dad fondly. When Jimmy receives a photo album from their father, he gives the album to Jonny, who obsesses over it. The album is Jonny’s only connection to his father, and Jonny faces trauma when Oskar burns Jonny’s desk containing the album. Though Jonny backs down from Oskar after Oskar hits him, Jonny listens to his older brother Jimmy and later seeks revenge. Both Jonny and Jimmy were willing to cut out Oskar’s eye as revenge for destroying their link to their father.

Eli, too, suffers trauma from a broken family. Eli is over 200 years old. His past only surfaces in memories that he allows Oskar to tap into. In those memories, Oskar experiences life as Eli—an entirely traumatic experience. Oskar witnesses Eli taken from his mother, and he sees a vision of Eli’s sister’s clothes stained with blood. Moreover, Eli outlives his family because they are human, and it’s hinted that the vampire who made Eli might have killed Eli’s mother. When the vampire takes Eli from his mother, he tortures Eli. Eli also hints at the fact that people wants specific things from him—sexual things, more than likely. In the past, another vampire told Eli that “most of us kill ourselves […]” (386), but Eli tries his hardest not to give in to “[…] that wonderful idea” (386). Eli’s life is one of trauma and regret, but that all changes when he makes a new family by running away with Oskar.