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Chapter 26
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
As soon as he’s off his medicine, Zombie gets transported to a hangar full of soldiers. Dr. Pam takes him to an examination room to look him over, then inserts a tracking chip into him, which she says is standard and which the military has been using for years. She shows Zombie a computer program code-named Wonderland that they found on a laptop from one of “the infested.” Dr. Pam says it’s a “mapping” program, which Zombie doesn’t understand.
Although the people at the camp seem to have helped Zombie survive his illness, the more time Zombie spends in the camp, the more mysterious the motives of people like Dr. Pam seem to be. It isn’t clear why, for example, Dr. Pam needs to “map” Zombie with an alien device. This highlights the dangerous nature of surveillance and leads readers to question whether Dr. Pam is one of the good guys.
Themes
Dr. Pam starts the program, and suddenly Zombie sees his whole life flash before him. He hears a voice telling him to take care of his baby sister (Sissy).
Zombie’s feeling of having his life flash before his eyes is like a form of death. It hints at how after surviving his disease at the camp, Zombie is reborn into a new person.
Themes
