A Look Inside Jeffrey Dresser Drawer (2024)

FAQs

What is in Shawn's middle dresser drawer? ›

The middle drawer of Shawn's dresser symbolizes the darkness and danger in Shawn himself. Will explains that the broken middle drawer was the only thing out of place on Shawn's neat and tidy half of their bedroom—and furthermore, it contained Shawn's gun.

An acid drum with three decomposing torsos was found in his bedroom, alongside severed body parts and skeletons hidden in wardrobes and dressers. Dahmer was arrested and the evidence was removed from his apartment.

The middle drawer is a symbol of the secrets that Shawn kept, the emotions he kept locked up, and the pent-up violence that characterizes his community.

The L Button

The L (lobby) button in the elevator symbolizes, much like the elevator itself, the horrendous fate that awaits Will if he chooses to step out of the elevator and into the lobby.

As Will listens to his mother's sobs at home, he opens the middle drawer of Shawn's dresser, previously forbidden territory, and finds a gun.

Analysis. This section explores smoke as a symbol that evokes the disorientation and cloudy thinking that accumulates in the wake of grief. In this section, Will grapples with the suffocating smoke within the elevator, which gets thicker as each of the dead contributes to it with their own cigarettes.

After he dies, Shawn seems to realize the tragic error of his violent and emotionally suppressed life. He doesn't explicitly state that The Rules are invalid and dangerous. Instead, he illustrates the pain and suffocation they caused him by violating the first rule and exhibiting profound emotion.

When Will tries to speak to him, Shawn doesn't answer. When Will hugs him, Shawn doesn't hug him back. This reminds Will of when they were younger, and Shawn used to ignore him to punish him for being an annoying kid. Will tells Shawn that he's following The Rules and is on the way to avenge Shawn's death.