Themes & analysis

Power:
Throughout the short story, Rhea and Rhonda Kunkel are extremely powerful characters.  Right from the beginning of the story, the narrator tells the readers that the two girls "basked in their power."  The twins were extremely powerful over their friends and Roger Whipple.  The narrator tells a story about how the three of them would always climb under the veranda of the Kunkels house to play and one time the twins made her strip off all of her clothes and would not let the friend out unless she were to do so.  The twins said, "This is to show our power over you."  Another example of power in the story is how Rhea and Rhonda treated Roger Whipple.  The two little girls would always make fun of and harass the boy.  They would circle him with their bicycles and play a game of how close they could get to him before hitting him.  Though roger was years older than the two girls, they clearly had more power over him until he took their power away from them by murdering them.

Revenge:
The theme of revenge plays a significant role in "Heat."  Revenge plays a big role in how the friend (narrator) and Roger Whipple react to the girls having a lot of power over them.  The story ends with the narrator saying, "I wasn't there, but some things you know."  The friend explains how she wasn't there for the death of the girls but somehow she knew a great amount of information and detail about how the girls were killed.  I think that the friend actually was there helping Roger Whipple kill the girls and that was her form of revenge to get back at them for abusing their powers.  Roger Whipple revenges by completely tricking the girls into that he needed to show them something cool in his room but he actually said that so he could kill them.  Also, there is a form of revenge by having the girls murderer (Roger Whipple) buried in the same place as the girls were.