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Chapter 13
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
Connor scans the school. There are security guards and teachers, so there’s no way to escape quietly. Lev suggests they go in, and Risa says they can hide in the girls’ bathroom. Connor says they can escape at lunchtime, but Risa points out that Didi might spoil their plans since they have no way to feed her. They slip into a bathroom after the bell rings and each take a stall. After a bit, Connor explains why he snatched Didi: it was because the boy said that they got storked again. Lev points out that he has three siblings who came by stork, and Connor sarcastically points to the hypocrisy of Lev’s parents accepting unwanted babies while tithing their own. Lev insists that tithing is in the Bible and that Moses was storked.
Though Connor has a point in noting the hypocrisy of Lev’s parents, it’s again important to keep in mind that Lev’s family interprets the Bible in such a way as to leave room for both tithing and accepting storked babies. Both are moral and right, in their view. Connor, however, sees firsthand that storking doesn’t solve the problem of unwanted babies, as plenty of the people who receive those babies via storking don’t want them either.
Themes
Connor says that his parents didn’t want another child, so they put the baby on a neighbor’s doorstep the next morning. They heard nothing until two weeks later, when another baby showed up. Connor’s mom realized it was the same one, but the baby was ill. It died in the hospital. Connor says he kept wondering why God would bring a baby into the world when it was going to be so unloved. His parents paid for the funeral and the whole neighborhood cried like the baby was theirs. Connor realized that they all killed it. Lev declares that people shouldn’t give away storked babies, while Risa says they shouldn’t stork babies at all.
Connor sees that the problem of unwanted babies is a much bigger and more complicated issue than Lev or Risa want to admit, especially since he’s seen firsthand that storked babies are more likely to die from neglect or exposure. This suggests that storking represents a humanitarian crisis, even if it’s legal—which again shows that the law isn’t effectively solving the problems it’s supposed to.
Themes
Connor knows they’re both right. In a perfect world, all babies would have homes. Their world isn’t perfect, however, even if some people think it is. The bell rings and the bathroom floods with people. The late bell rings and Didi wakes up and begins to make noise. Risa suggests they change stalls as a precaution. She and Connor discover that Lev is gone, and Didi starts to wail.
Connor’s aside that some people think his world is perfect makes it clear that there are those, like Lev, who have no conception of the issues that storking raises, no matter the intent. Someone raised to think like Lev wouldn’t pass on a storked baby; therefore, it’s inconceivable to him that the system doesn’t work perfectly.
Themes
