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Chapter 50
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
Eventually, it’s graduation day. The recruits receive new uniforms, which include headbands that glow green when a soldier is “unclean.” The only recruit who doesn’t get a new uniform is Nugget, who has to train for two more years. Feeling bad for Nugget, Zombie gives him Sissy’s locket. He promises to come back for Nugget. Later, Ringer scolds him for making a promise he can’t keep.
The graduation ceremony is not just about congratulating the new soldiers but also about further building an us-vs-them mentality by training the soldiers to recognize their enemies as “unclean.” Although Nugget is disappointed by his failure to graduate, in some ways Nugget’s inability to keep up with the cruel training shows his inherent good nature and how he has held on to some of his childlike innocence.
Themes
Later, Reznik pulls Zombie aside and takes him to an authorized personnel area, where Vosch is waiting for him. Reznik leaves, and Vosch addressed Zombie as Ben. He asks if Zombie is willing to die in combat. Zombie says he is. Vosch then mentions Tank’s death. He says that Tank died of an overdose after being taken off suicide watch. Vosch talks about his own breaking point, two weeks after the 4th Wave, when he had to exterminate everyone except the children in a refugee camp. Vosch says he has to live with killing some innocent people in order to get rid of the infested.
When Vosch calls Ben by his real first name, he treats him like a human in a way that no one else has done at Camp Haven. Furthermore, Vosch seems to show genuine human emotion when he talks about killing refugees at the camp. While Ben seems to take Vosch’s statements at face value, they don’t line up with how Cassie saw Vosch acting at the camp. This highlights Vosch’s ruthlessness. Vosch also knows how to strategically manipulate the trust of honest people like Ben.
Themes
Vosch says that Zombie, who will become Sergeant Parish, is graduating in the top four squads. Two squads will be deployed in enemy territory, and two will protect the base. Vosch goes on to show Zombie the Wonderland map of an infected brain. He says that about a third of the surviving human population are really infected, allowing the aliens to exterminate humans from inside—for this reason, there’s no need for a formal fifth wave. Eventually, humans will run out of supplies and die. But Vosch has another plan: he wants to take the battle to the aliens.
Vosch and Reznik do a little bit of a good-cop-bad-cop routine, with Vosch’s compassion in this passage being particularly striking after Reznik’s ruthlessness at boot camp. Vosch wants to instill in Ben the idea that making a better future will involve some difficult short-term sacrifices. While this lesson is not so different from what Cassie’s dad tried to pass on to her, Vosch acts in a manipulative way to get Ben to do what he wants rather than in the selfless Cassie’s father behaved.
Themes
