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Chapter 44
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
In Jack’s witness interview with Julia and Ro, the women insist on doing their interview together. Julia and Ro bicker with each other and Jack as they share that they were in the apartment the whole time. When Jack asks where they were when the pizza was delivered (that’s the last time they know for sure the robber was in the apartment), Julia and Ro argue about the difference between a chaise lounge and a divan. Julia says that they all—Estelle, Zara, Lennart, Anna-Lena, Roger, Ro, and herself—were in the apartment when they ate pizza. The real estate agent was there too. Ro and Julia then argue about if it’s appropriate to eat food in fridges at apartment viewings, and they say that everyone—including the real estate agent but not the robber—came downstairs when the robber freed them.
Similar to Roger, Zara, and Anna-Lena, Julia and Ro are conspicuously unwilling to answer any of Jack’s questions about the robber or the hostage drama. Instead, their interview seems (like Roger and Anna-Lena’s) to be a place for them to air their relationship grievances. Their fight, however, does seem a bit exaggerated, and it’s unclear at this point if this is because the hostages are all legitimately more worried about their relationships than about the hostage drama, or if there’s something strategic to their behavior.
Themes
