Why isn't Helen dead? *Spoilers*
Hey all, I'm a bit confused with the ending. In chapter 43 Carl recites the culling song while holding Helen (after Oyster has left her body so Helen's mind is back in her body). Why doesn't Helen die at this point? Instead, she's alive in the Sarge's body at the end. Did she figure Carl was going to recite the culling song to her, so she quickly uses the occupation spell to possess the Sarge's body again before Carl could kill her?
Any thoughts on this?
Yeah, that could be it...
But on page 254, it's obviously Helen back in her own body (she's crying over the shattered body of Patrick) - so she must have left the Sarge's body only to enter it again, right before Carl finished the culling song. Does that make sense? Right before Carl decides to recite the culling song, Chuck writes "Helen's head is nodding foward over Patrick. The blood's drooling from her mouth. Her arms are looser, spilling little fingers and toes onto the floor." This sounds as if she transported herself back to the Sarge's body...
I just finished the book and this may not be a very satisfying answer, but I think at that point of the book logistics sort of go out the window. The point is that Helen and Carl have been forced on to the other side of the power struggle and have no choice but to now go on a "witch hunt" and track down Mona and Oyster because they don't know any other way to live at this point (Another example of the reocurring question of free will thats discussed through out the book) . Having Helen enter the body of someone else is just a symbol of this transformation.
In books as crazy and extreme as his sometimes the technicalities at the end are less important then the message he's trying to leave you with.
That being said, Lullaby was my least favorite of the 5 Palahniuk books I've read so far.
its been a while, but i think that Helen switched places with the Sarge, and the culling song was sang to the physical Helen, who would be the the Sarge, yeah? so. in that last scene he's sleeping with Helen, in a mans body, and pretending it's someone else. i cant remember if he says his wife, or Mona.
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“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
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