Upon our group’s examination of Executing Dexter, we noticed a rather large gap in the character slots. Though there were a lot of characters that were talked about, the only ones we ever really interacted with as readers were both Herschel and Grant.

This lack of characters might initially lead you to believe that the characters would be lacking some depth, however, we believe it is this very lack of characters that not only adds depth; but helps define the duo as a whole.

The large majority of the story is spent looking at the relationship between Grant and Herschel, and we are able to see Herschel’s reflections on this relationship. Because we are also viewing this from a perspective in the future, it helps illustrate just how important Grant was for Herschel. Herschel does not fondly remember his father, stating that he was criticized. What our group noticed here was that Herschel and Grant both felt lonely and alienated from their family experiences. It was this loneliness that allowed them to bond together and form the special friendship they had; and in the context of the story, we found that this helped really flesh out their characters by exposing us to very few characters through the play.

Our group also came to the conclusion that with this shared loneliness also came jealousy. We pointed out that both characters had a void that couldn’t be filled by their respective parents, and we thought that this was perhaps the reason they started making babies to kill in the first place. Jealousy and lack of attention probably drove them in this direction to begin with.

A small side note that our group found interesting was the fact that these two young boys were “making babies” with each other, and with Hershel’s sexuality later revealed to us via himself, it led us to believe that perhaps there was more sentimentality for Hershel in these moments than we initially thought.

Beyond the limited characters, the other major point we decided to focus on was the very ending of the short story. We came to the conclusion that although vague, it’s likely that it represented a coming of age. They realized that they had not become “real people”, and by their desperate pulling on the raft to bring the flour baby back, they were somehow saving themselves. The other possibility we had come up with was the inverse situation; that the babies they were making together were as “real” as they were, and they had finally come to terms with how what they were doing wasn’t right. The ending is so vague it leaves many different possibilities, of course, these were just some of the thoughts we had on the matter.