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
The Second Civil War, or “The Heartland War,” was fought over abortion. In order to settle the conflict between Pro-life and Pro-choice armies, The Bill of Life was passed. These constitutional amendments made abortion illegal but legalized a process called unwinding, in which parents can choose to “retroactively ‘abort’” a child between the ages of 13 and 18. Since the bill was passed, unwinding has become “a common and accepted practice in society.”
This short prologue of sorts introduces the reader to the moral conundrum at the center of the novel: whether or not unwinding is a logical or ethical alternative to abortion. Although the Bill of Life is generally seen as normal and acceptable in the world of the novel, the fraught nature of the abortion debate—and the fact that a war was fought over this issue—makes it clear that the reader will have to come to their own conclusions about the morality of this practice.
Themes
