Dave's Indeterminable Damage

When young Dave gets into the car, there is no explicit display of the torture he endures. Through context we can assume he is raped and assaulted, but there is nothing to determine the extent of his trauma. Dave's rape and abuse as a child is left up to audience interpretation because every character in the movie must also try to rationalize and understand Dave's psyche.  The actual physical level of Dave's damage is unimportant rather than the mystery his character embodies due to his lost childhood stripped of his innocence. Dave leads a lonely, misunderstood life trapped in his own disheveled mind. His own wife questions if he really is Katie's murderer, and eventually turns him in. The mystery of his past is what forms his defining hamartia—the fatal flaw that destroys him. Because the characters are so perplexed by him, they have a hard time trusting him and knowing what he's capable of doing.

The lack of ability to grasp one another's pain is a recurring theme in Mystic River. No one truly knows what someone is going through and the impact it makes on a person's life. All of the men were misunderstood in a way that costed them. Jimmy's inability to express his grief in the death of his daughter leads him to lash out, and Sean's misunderstanding and miscommunication with his wife leads them to their split. When Sean says, "It's like we all were in that car that day," he is referring to the enigmatic emotional damage they face as children that affect their choices as adults. 



The following political cartoon pokes fun at the idea of hamartia; the "tragic flaw" existing for the characters in Mystic River (as discussed above)