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Part 3: Flat Hope
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Feed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Corporations and Consumerism
Apathy, Happiness, and Satisfaction
Resistance
Class and Segregation
The Environment
Summary
Analysis
Violet and Titus come down from the attic, passing people making out and other people “in mal.” Downstairs, they find Link and other friends playing spin the bottle. Quendy spins, and the bottle points at Link, and when they kiss, Quendy kisses him on the mouth—Link is too afraid of her lesions to push back. Marty chats Titus that Quendy looks great, but Titus tells him that her lesions are disgusting.
It seems people are divided over whether Quendy’s lesions are disgusting or attractive. Originally, everyone thought that lesions were horrifying, but thanks to corporate propaganda, some have come to think of them as attractive.
Themes
Just then, Calista says to Quendy, very loudly, “Don’t let anyone tell you you look stupid.” She accuses Quendy of altering her body just to get “someone’s boyfriend.”
Calista is being sarcastic, of course: her point is that Quendy is just aping her own fashion choices because she’s jealous of her (Calista’s) relationship with Link.
Themes
Marty spins the bottle, and it points to Violet. Before they kiss, however, Violet bursts out, “Stop it! People are starving. We’re playing games, and our skin is falling off.” She continues, shrieking, “You don’t have the feed! You are feed! You’re feed! You’re being eaten!” She calls Quendy a monster. Titus tries to calm Violet, but she scratches at him. Then, Violet realizes that her hands aren’t working. She’s drooling, and her eyes roll around. Someone calls an ambulance, and Titus rides to the hospital with Violet as his feed whispers about lawyers and malpractice suits. All he can think is, “The fucking party is over.”
Violet says everything she’s been keeping bottled up: Titus’s society is a nightmarish place, in which people are encouraged to think of the world as a product to be consumed, and in which they themselves are ultimately “consumed” by corporations that rely on their financial support. She points out that their bodies are being ripped apart by pollution. Violet also criticizes the obliviousness and incredible selfishness of Link and his wealthy friends, who are seemingly ignorant of other people’s suffering.
Themes
