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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Vox, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Action, Complacency, and Resistance
Language, Communication, and Power
Children, Indoctrination, and Acclimatization
Control, Religion, and Gender Essentialism
Choice and Personal Fulfillment
Summary
Analysis
Suddenly, Jean remembers Jackie Juarez. It’s a year and a half ago, the president has recently been inaugurated, and she’s watching TV with Patrick and Steven. Steven declares the woman on TV—Jackie—“hysterical,” explaining that in his new AP Religious Studies class, they’re learning about female hysteria. Returning to the TV, Jackie is on a talk show to promote her newest book, They Will Shut Us Up. The cover features pictures of dolls, all photoshopped with ball gags in their mouths. All of Jackie’s books are similarly titled and have disturbing cover art. On the TV, Jackie is screaming at the interviewer for using “Feminazi,” and turning to the camera, she asks female viewers to consider what it would be like to wake up and suddenly have no “voice in anything.”
Steven, as a teenage boy, is in an interesting position. At this point a year and a half ago, he’s a normal kid—but he’s also uniquely vulnerable to propaganda, which the AP Religious Studies class seems to impose on students. For now, this manifests as Steven dismissing Jackie Juarez’s warnings that people in power will consider taking away women’s voices and calling Jackie reactionary and unhinged. However, readers have the benefit of knowing that Jackie was absolutely correct—women in the novel’s present are limited to 100 words per day.
Active
Themes
Patrick excuses himself to go to bed, while Steven asks to switch the channel to Duck Dynasty. Jean isn’t impressed, but Steven scoffs that “There aren’t really people like that.” Steven finally goes to bed, explaining he has an AP Religious Studies test tomorrow—all students take this class, and they’re cutting biology and history. Jean turns Jackie Juarez back on. Jackie looks much older than when Jean knew her in grad school 20 years ago—but Jackie looks just as accusing now as she did then.
The “people like that” Steven refers to are rural and conservative, and there are, in fact, plenty of rural folks who hold conservative views. This reflects the bubble Steven is in due to living in Washington, D.C. And the aside that schools are phasing out history and biology suggests that schools’ goals are changing. Rather than educating students, schools are becoming a place where the government indoctrinates students—at school, students learn to obey, not to think for themselves.
Active
Themes
Jean and Jackie’s friendship began to go downhill when Jean once again refused to go to a march for “the Supreme Court thing,” preferring instead to study for grad school. Jean tried to explain how difficult her class was, but Jackie called her a “Bubble Girl,” happy to believe she was safe as a straight white woman. Following this, Jackie declined to renew her lease with Jean, and for Jean’s birthday, Jackie gave Jean a gift basket filled with things that pop, like a bubble wand, sparkling wine, and gum. Jean and Jackie didn’t speak again after that, but sometimes, Jean wonders if things would be different now if they’d stayed friends.
Active
Themes
