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Chapter 8
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Legend, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Privilege
Government, Propaganda, and Corruption
Dehumanization vs. Compassion
Family, Love, and Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Tess and Day are in the sand under a lake pier, eating as they hide from the passersby above. The lake was created when water levels rose, so buildings rise up from the floodwaters. There are also waterwheels and turbines in the water. To Day, it’s beautiful. Tess assures Day they have time to spare, but Day isn’t convinced: he peeked in on his family earlier, and Eden is in bed and clearly unwell. But maybe it’d be a good thing if Eden died of the plague before taking his Trial—he wouldn’t have to undergo the arduous test and wonder at the end if he’s in the group headed for “labor camps.”
Day feels extremely connected to both his home and his family. As grungy, poor, and dangerous as the Lake sector is, Day loves it and wants to do what he can to keep the people there as safe and happy as possible. He also continues to show that he sees the Trial as a danger to ideally be avoided at all costs. He recognizes that it traumatizes kids—even those who do pass, but who might fear they didn’t. More than anything, he wants to save Eden from that fear.
Active
Themes
Day talks for a bit about how Eden has always been sickly, but he feels awful when Tess brings up how sick she was when they first met. Tess doesn’t even have a family. Day found her three years ago and asked to join her in digging in some garbage bins. She tried to run away, fell, and skinned her knees. Day helped clean and bandage her knees, and since she didn’t have parents or a home, she stuck with him. After a few days, Day stopped trying to get her to leave and learned her name.
Over the last few years, Day and Tess have formed a close and supportive chosen family. Tess might not have a biological family anymore, but she does have a family member in Day. Indeed, he’s been looking out for her like he might look out for a sister since they first met. This is also another indicator of Day’s compassion and kindness: Tess was a stranger and was also perhaps a liability when they met, and yet he still took care of her injuries.
Active
Themes
Back in the present, Tess hits Day and wakes him up. They’re still under the pier, hours before dawn, and she whispers that she heard something “gurgling.” Police officers walk on the bridge above talking about plague in the faraway Zein sector, so Tess and Day sink back into the bank as far as they can. Once the police have passed, Tess points to the hard thing they were pressed up against. It’s a hollow structure of some sort, with hissing and gurgling coming from inside. It’s stamped faintly with the Republic’s flag and the number 318 in red.
Active
Themes
