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Chapter 38
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Anxious People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Parenting and Fear
Marriage, Conflict, and Communication
Mental Health and Connection
The Modern World
Assumptions
Summary
Analysis
At the police station, Jim is getting coffee when Jack races in and says the robber is hiding in the wall. They return to the apartment—and the narrator warns readers that they are missing something obvious. At the apartment building, Jim and Jack discuss how bad of a job the officer who’s supposed to be keeping the journalists away is doing. In the apartment, Jack knocks on the wall and Jim, not knowing what else to do, studies the contents of the abandoned pizza boxes. Finally defeated, Jack says “he” isn’t here, cursing. Trying to help, Jim suggests Jack check the closet, which is a walk-in, not the tiny space the plan denotes. Jack is enraged Jim didn’t mention this before. He hits his heads on hangers as he enters the closet, but Jim is right: the closet is big.
Jack remains fully motivated to find the robber and make sure they get the medical care they need—but once again, he’s thwarted. It’s somewhat ironic that Jim and Jack speak so poorly of the officer standing watch in the building, especially when Jim in particular comes off as so wildly incompetent. The fact that Jim didn’t share long ago that the closet is a walk-in makes his relationship with Jack even more fraught than it already was. Jack now feels like the sole person trying to genuinely put together the mystery—though, as the narrator notes, he and Jim are missing something (though what they’re missing is saved for later).
Themes
