Jameron wrote:I didn't think Eli was naked when he left the cancer woman's house? That's why he was able to undress when he got to Oskar's room?
Eli undresses in the movie, but in the novel Eli seems to go straight from the window to Oskar's bed, and the cancer woman episode is novel only. Oskar and Eli also talk in the novel about Eli running outside naked. Additionally, Oskar's mother came to Oskar's room asking about the voices she had heard, and she might perhaps have noticed Eli's clothes on the floor, if there were any.
Now, upon re-reading I notice that Eli had shoes on when running from the burning house - the tracks in the snow were made by "child shoes". Is this an inconsistency in the novel? Did Eli remove the clothes but keep his shoes on? Did he start running with his clothes still on, but undressed somewhere on the way to Oskar's window?
The reason for undressing I imagine is that the attack on the cancer woman was a particularly messy affair, where Eli's clothes got soaked with blood. Eli left his stained pink sweater at the scene after attacking Jocke, so apparently he was uncomfortable wearing bloodied clothes.
However, in the case of the cancer woman Eli might have been in a hurry. When waking up from his morphine induced coma, he possibly found that he had missed the opportunity to "shut off the infection" in his victim. He was now short of time to stop the victim from rising as a new vampire, and he didn't have time to bother about the state of his garments. He quickly searched through the house, and in the garage he found some petrol, which he poured over the victim. Then he lit the fire and ran away. Only later, when he had made some distance and felt safe, he undressed. Perhaps not until he was right outside Oskar's window, noticing it was left open.
If we decide on this scenario, the runners in the proposed memorial race would need to run neither barefoot nor naked. Unfortunately, authenticity would instead require them to wear blood stained clothes...