Unwind

by

Neal Shusterman

Connor Lassiter Character Analysis

One of the novel’s protagonists; a 16-year-old Unwind. Connor is angry and prone to acting out, which is why his parents choose to unwind him. Rather than go quietly, Connor runs away. Within 12 hours, authorities catch up to him and in his escape, Connor causes a deadly pileup on an interstate and shoots a Juvey-cop with the officer’s own tranquilizer gun. This earns him the nickname “Akron-AWOL.” During this skirmish, Connor also snags Lev out of a car and teams up with Risa. Connor isn’t great at thinking through his actions, hence why he grabs Lev, and later why he pulls a storked infant off of someone’s front porch. When Connor and Risa get separated from Lev, he begins to follow Risa’s lead. He learns that if he can take a moment to think and act accordingly, he has far more control. This allows him to avoid confrontations with Roland, a dangerous bully, as well as to save Risa from sexual violence at Roland’s hands. Once at the Graveyard, a safe space for escaped Unwinds, Connor begins to make a name for himself by fixing air conditioners and a peer, Hayden, says that everyone likes Connor because he has integrity. This becomes important after the Goldens are murdered, as the Admiral recruits Connor to his cause and sets him the task of figuring out who killed them. Though Connor understands why people dislike the Admiral (he doesn’t like him much either), he’s distraught when he learns that the Unwinds rioted and destroyed much of the Graveyard. Following the Admiral’s heart attack, Connor, Risa, and Roland are taken to the Happy Jack Harvest Camp. Connor’s reputation gives the other kids hope, which is why they choose to quickly unwind him. However, just as Connor enters the Chop Shop, clappers detonate and blow up the building. Because Connor loses consciousness, he has no choice: doctors choose to give him transplants for his damaged eye and right arm, which comes from Roland. Nurses also give Connor a new identity, which allows him to return to the Graveyard and take over for the Admiral.

Connor Lassiter Quotes in Unwind

The Unwind quotes below are all either spoken by Connor Lassiter or refer to Connor Lassiter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Inequality, Injustice, and the Law Theme Icon
).
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Anyway, since it was legally ours, we paid for the funeral. It didn’t even have a name, and my parents couldn’t bear to give it one. It was just ‘Baby Lassiter,’ and even though no one had wanted it, the entire neighborhood came to the funeral. People were crying like it was their baby that had died...And that’s when I realized that the people who were crying—they were the ones who had passed that baby around. They were the ones, just like my own parents, who had a hand in killing it.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi, Connor’s Dad, Connor’s Mom
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

“People shouldn’t do a lot of things,” says Connor. He knows they’re both right, but it doesn’t make a difference. In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or right, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Please what? the teacher thinks. Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk? But, no, that’s not it at all. What he’s really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it’s so easy to forget that’s what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Related Characters: The Teacher/Hannah (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

There’s nothing keeping them tied to this baby anymore. They could stork it again first thing in the morning [...] And yet the thought makes Connor uncomfortable. They don’t owe this baby anything. It’s theirs by stupidity, not biology. He doesn’t want it, but he can’t stand the thought of someone getting the baby who wants it even less than he does.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:

“You think this makes me a saint? Let me tell you, I’ve had a considerably long life, and I’ve done some pretty awful things, too.”

“Well, I don’t care. No matter how many times you smack me with that cane, I think you’re decent.”

“Maybe, maybe not. One thing you learn when you’ve lived as long as I have—people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I’m pleased to be in the light.”

Related Characters: Sonia (speaker), Connor Lassiter
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

The fighter in him screams foul, but another side of him, a side that’s growing steadily stronger, enjoys this exercise of silent power—and it is power, because Roland now behaves exactly the way he and Risa want him to.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Roland
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“You might think I’m stupid, but I got a good reason for the way I feel,” Emby says. “When I was little, I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Both my lungs were shutting down. I was gonna die. So they took out both my dying lungs and gave me a single lung from an Unwind. The only reason I’m alive is because that kid got unwound.”

“So,” says Connor, “Your life is more important than his?”

“He was already unwound—it’s not like I did it to him. If I didn’t get that lung, someone else would have.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Harlan Dunfee, Diego
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:

“The unborn have souls. They have their souls from the moment they get made—the law says.”

Connor doesn’t want to get into it again with Emby, but he can’t help himself. “Just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it true.”

“Yeah, well, just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it false, either. It’s only the law because a whole lot of people thought about it, and decided it made sense.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Diego
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

“The Admiral’s out of touch,” he would say. “He doesn’t know what it’s like to be one of us. He can’t possibly understand who we are and what we need.” And in groups of kids he’s already won over, he whispers his theories about the Admiral’s teeth, and his scars, and his diabolical plans for all of them. He spreads fear and distrust, using it to unite as many kids as he can.

Related Characters: Roland (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Admiral Dunfee, The Teacher/Hannah, Sonia
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:

“Then we proposed the idea of unwinding, which would terminate unwanteds without actually ending their lives. We thought it would shock both sides into seeing reason—that they would stare at each other across the table and someone would blink. But nobody blinked. The choice to terminate without ending life—it satisfied the needs of both sides. The Bill of Life was signed, the Unwind Accord went into effect, and the war was over. Everyone was so happy to end the war, no one cared about the consequences.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Emby
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:

“Of course, if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened...but people like to keep what’s theirs, even after they’re dead. It didn’t take long for ethics to be crushed by greed. Unwinding became big business, and people let it happen.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s only because of his unwinding that you’re all here. Afterward, my wife left me and formed a foundation in Harlan’s memory. I left the military, spent several years more drunk than I am now, and then, three years ago, I had The Big Idea. This place, these kids, are the result of it. To date I’ve saved more than a thousand kids from unwinding.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Harlan Dunfee
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 55 Quotes

“How can you do this?” she asks during one of their breaks. “How can you watch them day after day, going in and never coming out?”

“You get used to it,” the drummer tells her, taking a swig of water. “You’ll see.”

“I won’t! I can’t!” She thinks about Connor. He doesn’t have this same reprieve from unwinding. He doesn’t stand a chance. “I can’t be an accomplice to what they’re doing!”

Related Characters: Risa Ward (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Dalton
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 65 Quotes

It is only when a clapper brings his hands together that the lie reveals itself, abandoning the clapper in that final instant so that he exits this world utterly alone, without so much as a lie to accompany him into oblivion.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Lev Calder, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 305
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Unwind LitChart as a printable PDF.
Unwind PDF

Connor Lassiter Quotes in Unwind

The Unwind quotes below are all either spoken by Connor Lassiter or refer to Connor Lassiter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Inequality, Injustice, and the Law Theme Icon
).
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Anyway, since it was legally ours, we paid for the funeral. It didn’t even have a name, and my parents couldn’t bear to give it one. It was just ‘Baby Lassiter,’ and even though no one had wanted it, the entire neighborhood came to the funeral. People were crying like it was their baby that had died...And that’s when I realized that the people who were crying—they were the ones who had passed that baby around. They were the ones, just like my own parents, who had a hand in killing it.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi, Connor’s Dad, Connor’s Mom
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

“People shouldn’t do a lot of things,” says Connor. He knows they’re both right, but it doesn’t make a difference. In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or right, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Risa Ward, Lev Calder, Didi
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Please what? the teacher thinks. Please break the law? Please put myself and the school at risk? But, no, that’s not it at all. What he’s really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it’s so easy to forget that’s what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Related Characters: The Teacher/Hannah (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

There’s nothing keeping them tied to this baby anymore. They could stork it again first thing in the morning [...] And yet the thought makes Connor uncomfortable. They don’t owe this baby anything. It’s theirs by stupidity, not biology. He doesn’t want it, but he can’t stand the thought of someone getting the baby who wants it even less than he does.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Didi
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:

“You think this makes me a saint? Let me tell you, I’ve had a considerably long life, and I’ve done some pretty awful things, too.”

“Well, I don’t care. No matter how many times you smack me with that cane, I think you’re decent.”

“Maybe, maybe not. One thing you learn when you’ve lived as long as I have—people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I’m pleased to be in the light.”

Related Characters: Sonia (speaker), Connor Lassiter
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

The fighter in him screams foul, but another side of him, a side that’s growing steadily stronger, enjoys this exercise of silent power—and it is power, because Roland now behaves exactly the way he and Risa want him to.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, Roland
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“You might think I’m stupid, but I got a good reason for the way I feel,” Emby says. “When I was little, I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Both my lungs were shutting down. I was gonna die. So they took out both my dying lungs and gave me a single lung from an Unwind. The only reason I’m alive is because that kid got unwound.”

“So,” says Connor, “Your life is more important than his?”

“He was already unwound—it’s not like I did it to him. If I didn’t get that lung, someone else would have.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Harlan Dunfee, Diego
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:

“The unborn have souls. They have their souls from the moment they get made—the law says.”

Connor doesn’t want to get into it again with Emby, but he can’t help himself. “Just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it true.”

“Yeah, well, just because the law says it, that doesn’t make it false, either. It’s only the law because a whole lot of people thought about it, and decided it made sense.”

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter (speaker), Emby (speaker), Hayden, Diego
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 168-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

“The Admiral’s out of touch,” he would say. “He doesn’t know what it’s like to be one of us. He can’t possibly understand who we are and what we need.” And in groups of kids he’s already won over, he whispers his theories about the Admiral’s teeth, and his scars, and his diabolical plans for all of them. He spreads fear and distrust, using it to unite as many kids as he can.

Related Characters: Roland (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Admiral Dunfee, The Teacher/Hannah, Sonia
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:

“Then we proposed the idea of unwinding, which would terminate unwanteds without actually ending their lives. We thought it would shock both sides into seeing reason—that they would stare at each other across the table and someone would blink. But nobody blinked. The choice to terminate without ending life—it satisfied the needs of both sides. The Bill of Life was signed, the Unwind Accord went into effect, and the war was over. Everyone was so happy to end the war, no one cared about the consequences.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Emby
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:

“Of course, if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened...but people like to keep what’s theirs, even after they’re dead. It didn’t take long for ethics to be crushed by greed. Unwinding became big business, and people let it happen.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter
Related Symbols: The Bill of Life
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s only because of his unwinding that you’re all here. Afterward, my wife left me and formed a foundation in Harlan’s memory. I left the military, spent several years more drunk than I am now, and then, three years ago, I had The Big Idea. This place, these kids, are the result of it. To date I’ve saved more than a thousand kids from unwinding.”

Related Characters: Admiral Dunfee (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Harlan Dunfee
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 55 Quotes

“How can you do this?” she asks during one of their breaks. “How can you watch them day after day, going in and never coming out?”

“You get used to it,” the drummer tells her, taking a swig of water. “You’ll see.”

“I won’t! I can’t!” She thinks about Connor. He doesn’t have this same reprieve from unwinding. He doesn’t stand a chance. “I can’t be an accomplice to what they’re doing!”

Related Characters: Risa Ward (speaker), Connor Lassiter, Dalton
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 65 Quotes

It is only when a clapper brings his hands together that the lie reveals itself, abandoning the clapper in that final instant so that he exits this world utterly alone, without so much as a lie to accompany him into oblivion.

Related Characters: Connor Lassiter, Lev Calder, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 305
Explanation and Analysis: