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Section 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Minority Report, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Security vs. Liberty
Fate and Free Will
Trust and Paranoia
Summary
Analysis
As Anderton and Lisa pack up to leave for Centaurus X, Anderton ties up a few loose threads for Witwer: there were three minority reports, each of which covered a different time-path. In the first, Anderton murders Kaplan after learning of his plot. In the second, Anderton, motivated to keep his job, decides not to murder Kaplan. In the third and correct report, Anderton murders Kaplan in order to save Precrime. Two of the reports agreed he would murder Kaplan, which “created the illusion of a majority report.” Anderton warns Witwer that he could experience a similar predicament, for as the new Police Commissioner, he has access to precognitive data.
As the narrative comes to a close, readers learn that the majority report is an illusion, for each report is unique, and each covered a different time-path. Even the two reports that see Anderton murdering Kaplan—the “majority report”—are quite different, for they see the murders occurring on different time-paths and under different circumstances. Kaplan sought to maintain the second time-path, on which he was not murdered. However, Anderton utilized his intelligence and free will to manifest the third time-path, which corresponds to the story’s events. The dizzying dynamics of free will and fate (precognition) in the story suggest that life is a constant push and pull between the two forces, but Anderton’s ability to change his mind repeatedly as the story unfolded leaves readers with the sense that free will is ultimately—if marginally—the more powerful of the two forces.
Themes
