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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The 5th Wave, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trust and Belief
Survival and Perseverance
Warfare and Dehumanization
Family
Summary
Analysis
Cassie saw her first drone during her sixth day in the refugee camp. Based on how quickly it moved, it was clearly alien, and some people immediately ran for the woods. That night, Hutchfield closed off the whole camp with the people remaining inside, and he promised to shoot anyone who left without permission (which he never gave). Cassie’s dad gave her a pistol, telling her to always keep it hidden on her. Mother Teresa, an old woman who was always praying, argued with Dawkins, a college professor who was strongly an atheist. Sammy asked Cassie if God was angry with humans, and Cassie didn’t know what to tell him, but she promised he’d survive.
Although Cassie’s dad continues to make optimistic statements to Cassie, he gives her a pistol just in case. If even someone like Cassie’s dad is willing to consider violence, this suggests that it might be necessary to survive. Still, Cassie’s killing of the Crucifix Soldier shows the consequences of people being too quick to resort to violence. In the real world, Mother Teresa was a well-known Catholic missionary to India, while Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist famous for writing about atheism and inventing the word “meme.” The novel suggests that even an alien invasion wouldn’t settle people’s arguments about religious faith.
Themes
