The Teacher

The love poem Nate gives Addie symbolizes the many ways Nate manipulates the women in his life. While Nate attempts to convince Addie that he wrote the poem just for her, it later comes out that he has been giving the same poem to each of the girls he seduces. Nate first gave the poem to Eve when she was 15 and he was a new teacher fresh out of college. Nate also gave the poem to Addie’s nemesis, Kenzie Montgomery.

Nate is a romantic and is handsome. He uses his looks to his advantage, using it along with charm and his love of poetry to seduce vulnerable girls. Not only does the poem symbolize Nate’s manipulation of these girls, but it also represents that his attention to the girls has little or nothing to do with who they are as individuals and everything to do with how their fawning adoration feeds his ego. The fact that he doesn’t bother to write a new poem for each girl he seduces reflects that the girls are essentially interchangeable. The poem also symbolizes Nate’s romanticizing of his literary idols, such as Shakespeare and Poe. Nate is heavily influenced by both Shakespeare and Poe, two men who were involved in relationships that involved an older person with a much younger partner.