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Chapter 60
Themes
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
Lin has left detailed notes describing two methods of administering the injection: through a drilled hole directly into the brain, and intravenously. Jean is relieved that Mrs. Ray will arrive with a catheter already placed in her arm, though she wonders if she’s actually doing the right thing by restoring Mrs. Ray’s ability to communicate. Jean also considers Lorenzo’s offer—but how horrible would she be if she left her four children here? Still, she knows she’s also a terrible parent to stay and condemn her possible future daughter to a life with a counter.
Jean continues to mull over the fact that she really doesn’t have good choices to make, if she has choices to make at all. Morgan is going to force her to test the serum on Mrs. Ray, and he’ll certainly find someone else to do it if Jean won’t. As Jean considers her lack of choices, she descends into hopelessness and self-loathing, highlighting how her lack of choice keeps her from feeling any fulfillment—even from things that should make her happy, like discovering the cure for Wernicke’s aphasia.
Themes
Morgan, an orderly, and Mrs. Ray enter the lab. Jean first met Mrs. Ray years ago, when the old woman approached Jean with plans to turn Jean’s garden into something beautiful. The first Black president had just been elected. She had a stroke just before that president ceded power to the next one. When Jean greets Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Ray responds with nonsense. Lorenzo takes over filling the syringe from Jean, and the orderly wheels Mrs. Ray into her room. Alone for a moment, Lorenzo shakes his head—the Gold team has the serum and formulas. He says he has tickets, and when Morgan asks for what, Lorenzo says they’re for the symphony.
In this passage, Dalcher makes clear allusions to the real world: the first Black president is, no doubt, Barack Obama, and the “next one” is Donald Trump (President Myers is his analogue in the novel). By making these connections clear to the reader, Dalcher seems to suggest that what’s happening in the novel might be far-fetched in some ways—but if people don’t take Jean’s lessons to heart, particularly about the importance of organizing, something along these lines could indeed happen in the real world.
Themes
As Jean and Lorenzo approach Mrs. Ray, they share a look. If the serum works, their president will essentially bring about the end of the world. Supply chains, stock markets, and transit will disappear. Anyone who survives will be left trying to live off the land. Does Reverend Carl understand this? Lorenzo hands Jean the syringe, and she injects the liquid. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Ray looks at the rabbit and says she used to have a bunch of rabbits as a child.
