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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Unwind, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Inequality, Injustice, and the Law
Anger, Violence, and Radicalization
Activism, Compassion, and Atonement
Morality and Perspective
Summary
Analysis
A couple streets away, Risa rings a doorbell, adopts the name Didi, and tells a baffled woman that she’s collecting clothes and food as part of a school competition. The woman disappears and returns with a bag of food and clothes. Connor is impressed, but Lev points out that they’re still stealing. In the woods, Connor and Lev find clothes, but there’s nothing for Risa. Connor doesn’t think that changing clothes will matter, but Risa points out that cops always note what people are wearing. Connor points out that they’re not criminals, but Lev insists that they’re felons since kicking-AWOL is a federal crime. They move along and pass the mother, but she ignores them.
The revelation that kicking-AWOL is a federal crime shows that society in the novel is set up as to not give teens marked for unwinding any way out: even if they manage to escape being unwound, having a federal crime on their record may harm them as adults later, while the particulars of their crime may mark them as being out of touch with the beliefs of the general population and harm them further.
Themes
