Unwind

Unwind

by

Neal Shusterman

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Inequality, Injustice, and the Law Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Inequality, Injustice, and the Law Theme Icon
Anger, Violence, and Radicalization Theme Icon
Activism, Compassion, and Atonement Theme Icon
Morality and Perspective Theme Icon
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 Theme Icon

Unwind introduces the reader to a futuristic version of the United States. In the relatively recent past of the novel, the U.S. resolved the debate and subsequent Heartland War over abortion by adopting the Bill of Life, which states that after conception, a parent cannot terminate an unwanted pregnancy—but they can, once their child turns 13, begin to unwind the child. Unwinding is a process by which teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 are essentially harvested for parts, which, according to the Bill of Life, means that the child doesn’t truly die—they continue to exist in a divided state, as they’re still considered alive as long as 99.44 percent of their body is used in other people. Even though the Bill of Life is meant to resolve the debate over abortion, it gives rise to a new debate: to some, unwinding is the greatest public service anyone can perform and is unequivocally good, while to others, unwinding is a horrific practice that robs children of their futures. However, even though Unwind leaves room for thought experiments in support of either side of the debate, it still makes it very clear that the laws surrounding unwinding are, without exception, wildly ineffective at creating a truly equal and just society.

Despite being legal and considered normal by many—adults, children, and government officials alike—Unwind shows various instances in which the ethics of unwinding, and those of the society that supports this procedure, are actually muddier than people in the novel want to acknowledge. For instance, unwinding renders abortion illegal, meaning that women who may have terminated pregnancies if given the opportunity can instead stork their babies, or legally abandon them on doorsteps. If the woman gets away, she’s free and the homeowner has to care for the baby; if the homeowners catch her, she has to keep her baby. One of the novel’s main characters, an Unwind named Connor, explains that that while this may be a fine idea in theory, in practice, it puts vulnerable infants at risk. He shares that when he was little, his family was storked—but rather than keep the infant, Connor’s dad put it on a neighbor’s doorstep. Two weeks later, the baby reappeared on Connor’s family’s step, ill, and died days later after being passed from neighbor to neighbor, none of whom wanted another child. This makes the case, first of all, that the unwinding and storking laws aren’t effective in solving what they’re supposed to—unwanted babies still die, just from neglect after birth rather than via abortion. Further, Connor’s horrific story leads Risa, another Unwind and his traveling companion, to wonder if storking is really more humane than abortion was in the past, a question the novel never resolves but one that illustrates how effective the law is at solving the problem it was supposed to, instead perpetuating more cruelty and suffering.

Unwind shows that the injustice of the novel’s society goes far deeper than storking and unwinding, as people with money can also buy the best of the best when it comes to organs—and with enough money, they can even replace their own body parts, such as eyes or teeth, for purely cosmetic reasons. This creates a situation in which the poor in need of transplants or medical attention can’t afford the help they need, while the rich can use these resources to fulfill superficial desires. In a broader sense, the laws governing storking and unwinding prey upon society’s most vulnerable members: infants, teenagers with no legal rights, and in most cases, individuals who come from poverty and therefore have even fewer ways of defending themselves. Again, this asks the reader to consider whether laws and systems like those in the novel (which ostensibly solve widespread societal problems but cause more problems in the process) are truly just when the victims are overwhelmingly innocent and vulnerable populations, and those who benefit are overwhelmingly privileged to begin with.

Unwinding and storking were never intended to be taken literally and put into law—they were only introduced to make a point and solve the national debate surrounding abortion. Admiral Dunfee, a man who runs an underground resistance group that rescues Unwinds, tells Connor that he fought for the U.S. Army in the Heartland War, where his job was to try to keep the carnage at a minimum and, when it came down to it, broker peace between the two sides. He explains that the Bill of Life and the concept of unwinding were originally created as a satire of sorts, and the goal was to calm both sides and impress upon them that they were being ridiculous. But in reality, no one backed down and the Bill of Life inadvertently became the law of the land. The development of the Bill of Life illustrates clearly how nonsensical law is in the world of the novel. In many ways, unwinding is nothing more than abortion dressed up in a different package, as it may solve some issues but consequently introduces a host of other problems, including issues in common with abortion such as access, bodily autonomy, and family planning. Though Unwind doesn’t fully resolve any of these issues, being the first in a series of five novels, the book nevertheless shows clearly that within the world of the novel, the law as the characters know it is wildly ineffective, corrupt, and predatory—a scenario that sets the stage for potential change in later installments.

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Inequality, Injustice, and the Law Quotes in Unwind

Below you will find the important quotes in Unwind related to the theme of Inequality, Injustice, and the Law.
Chapter 2  Quotes

“Please, Miss Ward. It’s not dying, and I’m sure everyone here would be more comfortable if you didn’t suggest something so blatantly inflammatory. The fact is, 100% of you will still be alive, just in a divided state.”

Related Characters: Risa Ward, Admiral Dunfee, Headmaster Thomas
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The mother is nineteen, but she doesn’t feel that old. She feels no wiser, no more capable of dealing with this situation, than a little girl. When, she wonders, did she stop being a child? The law says it was when she turned eighteen, but the law doesn’t know her.

Related Characters: Didi, The Mother
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Anyway, since it was legally ours, we paid for the funeral. It didn’t even have a name, and my parents couldn’t bear to give it one. It was just ‘Baby Lassiter,’ and even though no one had wanted it, the entire neighborhood came to the funeral. People were crying like it was their baby that had died...And that’s when I realized that the people who were crying—they were the ones who had passed that baby around. They were the ones, just like my own parents, who had a hand in killing it.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi, Connor’s Dad, Connor’s Mom
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

“People shouldn’t do a lot of things,” says Connor. He knows they’re both right, but it doesn’t make a difference. In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or right, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Please what? the teacher thinks. Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk? But, no, that’s not it at all. What he’s really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it’s so easy to forget that’s what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Related Characters: The Teacher/Hannah (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

There’s nothing keeping them tied to this baby anymore. They could stork it again first thing in the morning [...] And yet the thought makes Connor uncomfortable. They don’t owe this baby anything. It’s theirs by stupidity, not biology. He doesn’t want it, but he can’t stand the thought of someone getting the baby who wants it even less than he does.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“You might think I’m stupid, but I got a good reason for the way I feel,” Emby says. “When I was little, I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Both my lungs were shutting down. I was gonna die. So they took out both my dying lungs and gave me a single lung from an Unwind. The only reason I’m alive is because that kid got unwound.”

“So,” says Connor, “Your life is more important than his?”

“He was already unwound—it’s not like I did it to him. If I didn’t get that lung, someone else would have.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Harlan Dunfee, Diego
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:

“The unborn have souls. They have their souls from the moment they get made—the law says.”

Connor doesn’t want to get into it again with Emby, but he can’t help himself. “Just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it true.”

“Yeah, well, just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it false, either. It’s only the law because a whole lot of people thought about it, and decided it made sense.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Diego
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

The days begin to pass quickly, and before she realizes it, she’s been there a month. Each day that goes by adds to her sense of security. The Admiral was an odd bird, but he’d done something no one else had been able to do for her since she’d left StaHo. He’d given her back her right to exist.

Related Characters: Risa Ward, Admiral Dunfee
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

“Of course, if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened...but people like to keep what’s theirs, even after they’re dead. It didn’t take long for ethics to be crushed by greed. Unwinding became big business, and people let it happen.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 52 Quotes

“What do you do with the club feet, and the deaf ears? Do you use those in transplants?”

“You don’t have either of those, do you?”

“No—but I do have an appendix. What happens to that?”

“Well,” says the counselor with near infinite patience, “a deaf ear is better than no ear at all, and sometimes it’s all people can afford. And as for your appendix, nobody really needs that anyway.”

Related Characters: Risa Ward (speaker), Emby
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis: