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The Profit Motive
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Things We Didn’t See Coming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Morality and Survival
Apocalypse vs. Routine
Body as Currency vs. Body as Liability
Wealth, Privilege, and Value
Care and Companionship under Crisis
Summary
Analysis
Now, the narrator works with “the last-hurrah set”: people with serious ailments who want a last adventure before they die. The narrator travels with a nurse, who gives these people the necessary medicines so that they can climb stairs and brave rapids. The narrator reflects that this new job is poetic in the way it allows dying people to be free—and either way, it’s better than being “a salaried embezzler for the state.”
The narrator has spent so much of the story trying to escape death, so his willingness to spend time around “the last-hurrah set” indicates an important shift in his mindset (and a structural clue that the novel is almost complete). The snarky mention of being a “salaried embezzler” helps readers make sense of the previous chapter: rather than trying to create a caring state, this new government was really all about “embezzlement” (which is why they tested the narrator’s willingness to keep quiet).
Themes
The narrator has cancer too, so he prides himself on his empathy (“it’s what makes me a good guide”). But this trip, he’s getting more complaints than usual, especially because many of his clients are worried the adventures they’re going on aren’t safe. At least now they’re at a spot that all of the travelers appreciate: a recently flooded valley. Despite the government’s best efforts to return the valley, post-flood, to its original temperate climate, they have been unsuccessful—and now it is tropical, palm trees bending in the wind.
Earlier in the novel, when the narrator was working as an evacuator, he prided himself on his lack of empathy. Now, his body as broken and transformed as the newly-tropical climate around him, he gives more stock to his ability to relate emotionally—even if only because empathy can be another form of currency.
Themes
The main attraction here is a volcano, which has been dormant for 32 years. The narrator’s clients mostly wish they were seeing a live volcano (“you want an explosion,” the narrator reasons, “especially when you’re going to die”). For his part, the narrator’s doctor encourages him to find meaning and meditation in the volcano, even though it does not currently emit fire. And since she also prescribes “the serious bone-curdling meds” he needs for his pain, the narrator tries his best to follow her advice.
Fire has finally come full circle, from being cozy with Grandpa to being destructive in Brownlee; this volcano is simultaneously threatening and dormant, dangerous and comforting and entertaining all at once. The narrator’s continued reliance on medication suggests that his cancer is more serious than he is willing to admit (though he is learning to see value in physical weakness).
Themes
The narrator reflects on the fruitlessness of these adventures: everybody present is going to die soon. But he makes a ton of money as a guide, so he’ll keep bringing each new group to ski and raft as they wish. The narrator notices a man dancing near the top of the volcano, and he reflects that this human form finally makes the volcano’s massive size come clean. The tiny man dancing in the smoke also makes the narrator realize that he needs to visit his Dad.
Over and over again, the novel has pointed out how capitalism persists even through apocalypse. In this moment, the narrator demonstrates that money triumphs on a personal level, too: even as people are going to die, all they can think to do is spend money or earn it. The narrator’s newfound focus on scale also epitomizes the novel’s tonal project, which describes earth-shattering events through seemingly unimportant, mundane details.
Themes
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One of the people on the trip, a pregnant teen, comes over to the narrator, and he shoos her away. Suddenly, the wind changes directions, and the man at the volcano is revealed to be a pile of rocks. But the narrator is still determined to see his Dad, so he cancels the planned cliff walk and shepherds his clients into a plane, telling them that they are going to see a real, live shaman.
The presence of the pregnant teen is surprising here: have the widespread fertility problems ceased? Is this teen, too, approaching the end of her life? It is also worth noting that even the narrator’s family reunion has to be framed in the language of capitalist healing, medicine for a price.
Themes
The clients complain about the change in itinerary, but the nurse persuades them to come with promises of treated plane air and antiviral water. From the plane, the narrator calls Dad, who still has the same playfulness in his voice; Dad claims he “willed” the narrator to call him. While the narrator’s clients watch things on their handheld screens, the narrator tells Dad that he is still working as a tour guide. Dad is surprised that “there are still tours, still sites to see,” but he also acknowledges that “someone always has the money,” a fact he thinks his son has known for a long time.
More than in any other arena, this final chapter highlights improvements in medical technology (treated air, antiviral water), advancements that were likely necessary because of the virus’s long-lasting aftereffects. Dad’s comment that “someone always has the money” flashes back to the narrator’s experience with Juliet, when wealth allowed them to escape food insecurity and violence.
Themes
The narrator asks if he can bring the tour group to Dad’s house. Though Dad is at first hesitant to work with people who are so heavily medicated, the prospect of seeing his son wins out. The narrator reveals that he is already on the plane, and Dad admits that he was “ready before the phone even rang.”
Part of Dad’s seeming omnipotence is probably linked to his self-identification as a shaman, but this exchange also shows just how deeply and intuitively father and son understand each other—and have always understood each other.
Themes
The narrator flashes back: just before the Barricades started, Dad got the family reclassified, and they moved to the country. There was clean air, water, and a lovely garden, but Cate couldn’t take it and returned to the city. When the narrator was asked to decide for himself where he wanted to live, he eventually moved in with Cate (“I got bored easily back then”). Though Dad claims he is over this long-ago choice, he still frequently brings up the narrator’s abandonment.
Just as the novel contrasts the quotidian with the apocalyptic, the narrator must also struggle to find contentment without slipping into boredom. Structurally, it is interesting that readers only learn about the narrator’s early life at this late stage in the book. Perhaps the narrator, struggling with cancer and thinking about his own mortality, is reflecting on his life with a cohesion he could not previously access.
Themes
The nurse comes over to the narrator, relaying the group’s lack of enthusiasm about the shaman. One client, who the narrator calls “The Unmarried Talker,” has heard reports of “fabricated shamans”: white men who pay for some phony authentications. The narrator promises that the land is beautiful, and that the trip will be worth it, but before he can get his point across, he doubles over with a bad coughing fit.
The Unmarried Talker’s accusations echo contemporary conversations about cultural appropriation in capitalism, showing once more how close today’s society is with the one the novel depicts. This sudden, upsetting coughing fit from the narrator foreshadows the bodily collapse yet to come.
Themes
Truthfully, Dad has only ever used the term “shaman” once with the narrator. Once the narrator started earning good money, he began visiting his father more; at that point, Dad was already living off the land, “feral.” During the narrator’s first cancer, Dad had tried to get him to abandon his meds; Dad himself uses no meds, and in fact doesn’t have anything that needs to be purchased. Back on the plane, one of the passengers worries this detour will cost extra—she’s already maxed out what she can afford.
Dad’s off-the-grid lifestyle ties back to his earlier frustrations with human “arrogance”; just as he once distrusted computer programmers, he now distrusts doctors and medical scientists. The passenger’s poignant concern about money, even at the end of her life, underscores how little generosity has survived all of these overlapping crises.
Themes
The nurse tells everyone on the plane that the shaman is the narrator’s father, and the crowd erupts with frustration and alternate suggestions, of different clinics and hospitals they could try. But the narrator refuses, reminding them that this isn’t a medical tour and promising to treat them to a steak dinner. The crowd agrees, though the narrator remains angry at the nurse for violating protocol.
Though the narrator was boasting about his empathy just a few pages ago, he now tries to persuade his passengers not with heartfelt explanations—like an honest statement of his desire to see his father—but with a steak dinner, something fancy to be purchased and served.
Themes
On the bus there, the narrator sits next to Anthony, one of the few people who has been able to take more than one of these trips. The narrator realizes that Anthony is resting his hand on the narrator’s—and that, given how medicated and scarred they both are, it took them each a while to notice the contact. Dad will surely have a remedy for these dark orange patches on both their skin.
This moment, which echoes the final handhold between Grandma and Grandpa, is filled with symbolic significance. Though this contact is one of the most tender scenes in the entire novel, it is impossible for either man to fully recognize it because of how much their bodies have been through—a comment on the ways in which large-scale tragedy deforms intimate personal interaction.
Themes
They arrive at Dad’s place, which is decorated with all kinds of things to invite good spirits and ward off visitors. To the narrator’s surprise, Dad’s house is no longer standing; the entire property is now a garden. Dad runs out, wearing only a batik diaper. His hair and eyebrows are gone (which the narrator thinks makes him a perfect “freak show” for the tour group), but he looks healthy and strong.
This strange garden, designed to ward off all evil, recalls the forest clearing where Dad promised the narrator they would always be safe. Once again, Dad’s paranoia has served him well; while the narrator is doubled over, coughing, Dad’s body is thriving.
Themes
When Dad realizes that the air inside the bus is treated for immunity, he urges the group to leave right away. Anthony rushes out, amazed by the sweetness and clarity of the air at Dad’s place. Soon after, the others follow. The pregnant teen encourages the narrator to say hello, and he realizes with a start just how kind she has been to him the whole trip. The tourists start embracing Dad and each other, and the narrator wonders about the last time each of them was touched.
The narrator’s dismay at having mistreated the pregnant woman, paired with his recent handholding with Anthony, signals his own dismay at the ways he has let go of basic human relationships. It is especially telling that the narrator then watches this hug from the outside, rather than joining in.
Themes
The narrator admits that he, too, is sick, which Dad already seems to know. Suddenly, all of the tourists are working together to lift the narrator up, being careful so his skin won’t tear (“we all learn so much about treatment from each other”). The narrator notices his father’s green eyes, “like a bucket of summer peas,” and for the first time he is able to let go of anxiety.
This sudden focus on the narrator and Dad’s shared green eyes recalls the very first scene, when the narrator learned how to “think defensively” from his Dad’s behavior in the hit and run. Now, however, the narrator gives up Dad’s anxiety instead of taking it on, letting himself be “treat[ed]” by the people around him.
Themes
As the narrator drifts in and out of consciousness, he hears the nurse explain that he’s been struggling for a while, that his medication finally failed in the last 48 hours. The narrator feels twigs under his back, but language is difficult now. “All I know,” he confesses as he stares into Dad’s green eyes, “is I’m looking up into this green that’s looking back at me, this green that I’ve heard about my whole life because I have it too.”
Though there is some ambiguity here, this moment is beginning to look like a death scene—and given that the narrator can only communicate to his readers through words, his loss of language also suggests that the end of his story is nigh. It is important to note how much the narrator seems to blend into his father, equating their shared green eyes with their shared “life” force.
Themes
One of the tourists thinks it’s too late for the narrator, but Dad is still trying, asking for help and space from the tour group. The narrator notices the lines on his father’s hands and realizes Dad has been working hard. The narrator now wants to apologize for returning to the city as a teenager; finally, he is ready to live out here and take care of Dad. Dad moves his hands down the narrator’s face and body—“and then, without a sound, without the slightest incantation,” he closes the narrator’s green eyes.
The narrator’s newfound resolve to take care of Dad mirrors his declaration, in the first chapter, that he would take care of his parents no matter what crises the future had in store. Ironically, though, it is Dad who is taking care of the narrator—perhaps a suggestion that, having destroyed the planet in so many ways, Dad’s generation will never see their children become full, caretaking adults. Dad’s closing of the narrator’s green eyes, the very eyes that symbolize life, suggests that the narrator is dying. And in a story about survival, it is only fitting that the protagonist’s death spells the end of the book.
Themes
