We never do find out why his mother killed herself - it seems to be the one part of his childhood memories that he doesn't want to recall. Nobody actually killed Raymond - the dead body with the knife in his throat is Mark Binney (in the book) and Finney (in the fantasy that Marlow creates about his screenplay), but, in both cases, is purely a product of Marlow's imagination, where the villain is physically identical to the man who seduced Marlow's mother - the writer's way of getting his own back.
The teacher certainly does haunt Marlow - it's based on that childhood incident, where Marlow feels guilty about what he did to Mark Binney (and what the future had in store for Binney).
The final forest scene represents Marlow deciding not to let anyone get close to him ever again, so that he can't be hurt any more, and he's pretty much been carrying that out ever since - keeping everyone at a distance - but now he's had a kind of revelation (being killed in his dream by his own creation) so that the old Marlow is dead, to be replaced by a more trusting individual. I don't think the forest scene actually happened - it's a metaphor for the change that Marlow is going through in the hospital - he's gone from being a loner, who doesn't even want to be with his father (or Nicola) to someone who acknowledges that he does need other people.
Hope this helps.
reply
share