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Chapter 54
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 interview with Lennart, they argue about whether Lennart was in a production of The Merchant of Venice or The Merchant from Venice, and then Jack asks Lennart to stick around in case he has more questions later. Then, Jack asks about the fireworks the robber asked for: this was a really unusual request. Lennart notes that it’s actually unusual to take people hostage. Then, Lennart asks if other hostages—namely Zara—are still at the station. She’s the first person he hasn’t been able to read, and he’s good at reading people. Laughing, Jack says Jim always says that you marry “the one you don’t understand. Then you spend the rest of your life trying.”
Like the other hostages, Lennart is surprisingly cagey when it comes to talking about the robber; saying why the robber wanted fireworks seems, on the surface, like a pretty benign thing to share. When Lennart asks after Zara, it highlights the narrator’s insistence that this is a love story as well as a hostage drama. Lennart is, as the narrator noted earlier, “hooked,” and he’s now fully focused on trying to figure out Zara.
Themes
