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Chapter 56
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
The squad splits up into pairs, with Ben staying alone. He sends his soldiers down toward an embankment while he stays by a big fuel truck in the complex and takes off the fuel cap. He sticks a grenade down the tank and runs, but while the grenade causes a small explosion, it doesn’t ignite the fuel in the cargo part of the truck. Ben decides to run, hoping the explosion blinded the sniper’s night vision goggles. When the full truck does ignite, the blast throws Ben forward, and he hears a scream.
Despite how Ringer makes Ben stronger, Ben tries to go alone. Unlike Cassie, who goes alone because she doesn’t trust others, Ben seems to want to be a hero and to take on the responsibility to help his squad mates. Ben’s awkward attempts to make the truck explode emphasize how he is dealing with powerful, potentially deadly forces that he doesn’t fully understand.
Themes
A bullet shatters glass near Ben, so he gets up and runs until he sees Oompa, who’s been severely wounded by a chunk of metal from the explosion, with Poundcake watching over him. Ben shoulders Oompa, and they head toward a garage where their medic, Dumbo, will be. They make it back and find that Teacup has also been shot, although only superficially.
Ben’s decision to try to figure things out for himself ended up having consequences for Oompa. Oompa’s injury, which comes from a flying piece of shrapnel, shows how the suffering of war can be random and unfair.
Themes
Flintstone complains that they should have aborted the mission. Ben says the sniper knows their location now, so someone has to take the sniper out. He sends Poundcake and Ringer. Then he tells Dumbo to get the shrapnel out of Oompa as soon as possible, believing that’s the best option. Oompa screams, and Ben can tell that the other squad members are going into shock. Oompa’s wound is serious, and Ben can tell they’re losing him. Oompa says that his real name is Kenny, then dies.
Ben continues to make difficult decisions as a leader. He doesn’t know, for example, whether it is really best to pull the shrapnel out of Oompa/Kenny immediately, but he makes that call and has to live with the consequences. For Ben, the difficulty is not only that his decisions may have led to Kenny’s death but also that he'll never know for certain if he bears responsibility or if Kenny would have died regardless.
Themes
