When a person feels no remorse for his actions, there tends to be reasoning behind this emotional detachment. Molly is tough. Her domineering personality has been exposed through her dealings with other characters throughout the book. I believe that Gibson is using Molly’s anecdote in Chapter 15 in order to show that no matter how hard someone’s exterior may seem to be, everyone is subject to the hardships that life brings.
When you meet a person who is rude, spiteful, or, as in Molly’s case, coarse, you do not really consider why that person is the way he is. You just judge him. Gibson sheds some light on why Molly behaves the way she does by briefly recapitulating her past experiences.
Perhaps the reason Molly has such little respect for human life, is because of the disrespect for it that she has witnessed throughout her lifetime. Molly explains that her lover’s death was similar to the death of a rat that she witnessed. The old man who killed the rat pointed the gun “at the floor, grins, and pulls the trigger. Rolled it back up and left…(Molly) crawled under there later. Rat had a hole between its eyes…the second one, the one who came for Johnny, he was like that old man…he killed that way” (177).
This traumatizing experience made Molly aloof. She “never much found anybody (she) gave a damn about after that” (178). Had Molly never endured this pain, she would probably be more naively content and innocent than she is now. Yes, she was still a criminal back in the day, but she had never felt the wrath of human depravity first-hand.
I agree with your examination of Molly, Carly, and I appreciate your using direct quotations. I think there are other episodes in Molly’s life that you would find equally helpful in building your argument here.
I completely agree with your notion that a character’s persona develops over time, unlike the idea that one is simply born with a certain attitude. Furthermore, people tend to forget that at one point, Molly, was an innocent girl with feelings and not this indifferent warrior. With this in mind, one can dispel that Molly already fit her current profile from the moment she came to existence, but that her environment conceived her to become the person she is. Lastly, Case’s current change of person supports your point that people may come from noble background, but that they ultimately change to adapt to their current positions.