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Chapter 62
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
Jack storms out of the interview room, leaving Jim with the real estate agent. Jim passes her a glass of water, and she says she’s not the robber. Nodding, Jim puts a hand on her shoulder and says he knows. He looks ashamed. He plays with his wedding ring when he picks his hand up; he still won’t take it off. He silently muses that the most difficult thing about death is “the grammar.” Jim’s wife will never be angry again or put cornflakes in Jim’s shoes. Now, she was a jokester, and she is dead.
Jim’s shame is a red flag that he knows more than he’s letting on. However, the fact that he’s worrying his wedding ring and thinking of his wife suggests that he may have tried to follow her advice to help people in whatever he chose to do. As he considers the “grammar” of death, he plays with the same thing Estelle did by saying that Knut was just downstairs, parking the car. He doesn’t want to always be reminded that his wife is gone, never to joke again.
Themes
Jim joins Jack in the hallway. Jack says the real estate agent must be the robber. Jim says the robber wasn’t in the apartment when Jack stormed in, but she also didn’t leave with the hostages. Jack asks how Jim knows, and finally, Jim tells the truth.
Readers don’t know yet what the truth is, but this passage confirms that Jim knows more than he’s let on thus far. In addition, this scene frames Jim’s decision to tell Jack this new information as Jim letting Jack down, since presumably, Jack definitely won’t be able to prove himself to the bosses now.
Themes
