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Chapter 51
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
After Ben leaves Vosch’s office, Reznik congratulates him by name. Vosch gives a speech at graduation, but Ben is too distracted to pay attention. He feels like he has burned the corpse of his old self inside of him. He looks up at Vosch and feels like Vosch is staring right back at him.
Ben has already gone through a couple rebirths so far in the story, first from Ben into Zombie, then from a sickly boy into a battle-ready soldier. Although Ben initially took pride in how tough he was becoming through training, his thoughts now of his past as a burned corpse show how his feelings are beginning to become a little more ambivalent.
Themes
