Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Unwind, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Inequality, Injustice, and the Law
Anger, Violence, and Radicalization
Activism, Compassion, and Atonement
Morality and Perspective
Summary
Analysis
A guard stands outside the Chop Shop. He’s bored and unsuccessful; he grew up in a state home and, like many other kids from the home who also left, decided to change his last name to Mullard, the name of the wealthiest family in the area. It hasn’t done him any good. Mai and Blaine approach him with foil-covered plates, ostensibly for the band. They look shifty and nervous, but this is nothing unusual as all Unwinds look nervous near the Chop Shop. The guard calls it in to try to verify this, but the line is busy. He decides to let them in and forgets about them as soon as the doors close.
Much like the surgeons inside the Chop Shop, this guard sees what he’s doing as just his job and not necessarily something with major moral implications. This reminds the reader that while everyone who benefits from this system is complicit in some way, not everyone focuses their energy on thinking about the negative implications of unwinding or of their role in relation to it.
Themes
