Survive the Night: A Novel

Part 7 acts as the climax of the novel and includes a plot twist that reveals Robbie as the Campus Killer and the true antagonist of the novel. Sager uses Trust Versus Paranoia to highlight the contrast between the true natures of Josh/Jake and Robbie. The man Charlie did not trust for most of the novel, Josh, was truly a good man. However, Robbie—the man in whom Charlie put her trust and around whom Charlie always felt safe—is not a man Charlie can trust. This truth devastates and disgusts Charlie. She no longer “recognizes any part of the man she encountered that night” when she first met him in the library (295). His explanation that he killed Maddy because she was too demanding and not special angers Charlie. Her next hallucination bids her to take action, and this time, she does—she starts speeding and demanding Robbie to tell the truth about his plans. Robbie admits to her, “I’m going to kill you” (300). This admission confirms that Charlie cannot trust him and that she must avenge Maddy and kill Robbie before he kills her. Her fear leads her to drive into the ravine, but the narrator states that the ravine is “nothing compared to the fear rushing through Charlie’s body. Her terror is twice as dark and twice as volatile” (300). When the car is in the water, Robbie hits her and holds her underwater, but Charlie’s improvised plan and distrust of Robbie remind her to use the handcuffs on him. He tries to use his “big, Bambi eyes” to convince her to free him (307), but his trick only makes her angry. She now knows that she cannot trust him and that he will betray her if she frees him. Thus, she leaves him to drown, but not before pulling out one of his teeth with the pliers to give to Marge.

Part 7 also reestablishes The Wrongful Blaming of Women for Misogynistic Violence. Though Robbie’s dislike for people who are not special is not explicitly gender specific, his decision to only kill women indicates that his hatred of people he does not consider special is rooted in misogynistic ideas and stereotypes. Robbie tells Charlie that he killed Maddy because she was “too brash” and “always loud. Always demanding attention” (294). He also refers to Maddy as an “attention whore” who did “any pathetic thing she could just to be noticed” (305). He similarly shames another victim, Angela Dunleavy, for flirting with him so openly at the bar where she worked. He calls her “worthless,” stating that “[s]pecial girls don’t need to show off in too-tight shirts and too-high skirts. To get his attention, they don’t need to write their number on a napkin and slip it with a wink into his lap” (305). Furthermore, the glimpse into his thoughts reveals a first and undiscovered victim, Katya, who he murdered as a teenager because she “strutted up and down the sidewalk like she was hot shit when she was really just trash” (305). He adds that she “showed too much skin and was so loud Robbie could hear her coming from two blocks away” (305). The misogynistic manner in which he thinks about his victims and compares them to Charlie, who he sees as special like him, indicates that he has internalized misogynistic ideas that dehumanize girls and women who are confident, expressive, and open with their sexuality. He blames their lack of specialness in his mind for making him kill them and sees their traits as moral evils that he must purge from the world. Though he murdered Katya, Angela, Taylor, and Maddy, he believes that their undesirable and non-special behaviors made them responsible for their deaths.

In Part 7, Charlie experiences heartbreak and betrayal at Robbie’s reveal as the Campus Killer. Now wanting to live a full life, she uses her anger, her father’s advice, and her love for her friend Maddy to bring Robbie to justice. She also manages to overcome fear and take hold of the life that she wants by becoming an active person in her own life.