Unwind

by

Neal Shusterman

Lev Calder Character Analysis

A 13-year-old tithe. Lev grew up in an intensely religious community and in a family that believed in tithing to the letter—that is, because biblical tithing technically refers to offering up 1/10 of one’s earnings, his parents planned to tithe Lev from the beginning, since Lev is their 10th child. This means that he will be unwound as a teenager so that his organs can be harvested and donated to others. Because of this, Lev grows up believing that he’s special and blessed with a purpose. He never worries about high school or anything else, as he knows he’ll never get there. Though he loves his parents, he relies heavily on Pastor Dan for emotional and spiritual support as he approaches his tithing. Lev begins to question everything and everyone—especially Pastor Dan. However, Connor rips Lev out of the car Lev is taking to the harvest camp and Pastor Dan tells him to go. Though Lev thinks poorly of Connor and Risa—he believes they’re out of control and would be better off unwound—he does find himself beginning to care about them as they hide and try to figure out how to keep themselves safe. Lev turns himself, Connor, and Risa in, but he regrets it immediately when he calls Pastor Dan, and Pastor Dan again tells him to go on and reinvent himself. While separated from Connor and Risa, Lev travels with a boy named CyFi to Joplin, Missouri. Lev joins CyFi mostly because he feels lost, alone, and unsure of what to think, but he ends up bearing witness to the horrors of unwinding when CyFi experiences a meltdown thanks to his temporal lobe, which was transplanted from an Unwind. This experience changes Lev and propels him toward the clappers, a terrorist group. Lev allows his anger to fuel him and agrees to blow up the Happy Jack Harvest Camp in a suicide bombing—until he discovers that Risa and Connor are both there and will die too. Rather than clap and detonate, Lev leads the rescue effort and turns himself in. Lev begins to feel hopeful when Pastor Dan tells him that they can still believe in God, without believing in tithing.

Lev Calder Quotes in Unwind

The Unwind quotes below are all either spoken by Lev Calder or refer to Lev Calder. 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 21 Quotes

Lev had agreed to go with him because he knew the two filled a need in each other. CyFi was like a preacher with no flock. He couldn’t exist without an audience, and Lev needed someone who could fill his head with ideas, to replace the lifetime of ideas that had been taken from him.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cyrus Finch/CyFi
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:

“He’s not a bad kid. He’s just hurting. Hurting real bad.” The way Cy’s talking, it’s like the kid is still there, right in the room with them. “He’s got this urge about him to grab things—like an addiction, y’know? Shiny things mostly. It’s not like he really wants them, it’s just that he kind of needs to snap ‘em up. I figure he’s a kleptomaniac.”

Related Characters: Cyrus Finch/CyFi (speaker), Lev Calder, Tyler
Page Number: 138
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

And all at once Cy realizes that Tyler doesn’t know. The part of that boy which comprehends time and place isn’t here, and never will be. Tyler can’t understand that he’s already gone, and nothing Cy can do will ever make him understand. So he goes on wailing.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cyrus Finch/CyFi, Tyler
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

He could join them just out of spite, but that’s not enough—not this time. There must be more. Yet, as he stands there, Lev realizes that there is more. It’s invisible, but it’s there, like the deadly charge lurking in a downed power line. Anger, but not just anger: a will to act on it as well.

“All right, I’m in.” Back at home Lev always felt part of something larger than himself. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he missed that feeling.

Related Characters: Lev Calder (speaker), Cyrus Finch/CyFi, Cleaver, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 230
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 57 Quotes

Lev was terrified of these people, and yet he felt a kinship with them. They understood the misery of being betrayed by life. They understood what it felt like to have less than nothing inside you. And when they told Lev how important he was in the scheme of things, Lev felt, for the first time in a long time, truly important.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cleaver, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 284
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:
Chapter 68 Quotes

“You may be responsible for your actions,” Pastor Dan says, “but it’s not your fault you weren’t emotionally prepared for life out there in the real world. This was my fault—and the fault of everyone who raised you to be a tithe. We’re as guilty as the people who pumped that poison into your blood.”

Related Characters: Pastor Dan (speaker), Lev Calder, Lev’s Dad
Page Number: 328
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lev Calder Quotes in Unwind

The Unwind quotes below are all either spoken by Lev Calder or refer to Lev Calder. 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 21 Quotes

Lev had agreed to go with him because he knew the two filled a need in each other. CyFi was like a preacher with no flock. He couldn’t exist without an audience, and Lev needed someone who could fill his head with ideas, to replace the lifetime of ideas that had been taken from him.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cyrus Finch/CyFi
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:

“He’s not a bad kid. He’s just hurting. Hurting real bad.” The way Cy’s talking, it’s like the kid is still there, right in the room with them. “He’s got this urge about him to grab things—like an addiction, y’know? Shiny things mostly. It’s not like he really wants them, it’s just that he kind of needs to snap ‘em up. I figure he’s a kleptomaniac.”

Related Characters: Cyrus Finch/CyFi (speaker), Lev Calder, Tyler
Page Number: 138
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

And all at once Cy realizes that Tyler doesn’t know. The part of that boy which comprehends time and place isn’t here, and never will be. Tyler can’t understand that he’s already gone, and nothing Cy can do will ever make him understand. So he goes on wailing.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cyrus Finch/CyFi, Tyler
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

He could join them just out of spite, but that’s not enough—not this time. There must be more. Yet, as he stands there, Lev realizes that there is more. It’s invisible, but it’s there, like the deadly charge lurking in a downed power line. Anger, but not just anger: a will to act on it as well.

“All right, I’m in.” Back at home Lev always felt part of something larger than himself. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he missed that feeling.

Related Characters: Lev Calder (speaker), Cyrus Finch/CyFi, Cleaver, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 230
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 57 Quotes

Lev was terrified of these people, and yet he felt a kinship with them. They understood the misery of being betrayed by life. They understood what it felt like to have less than nothing inside you. And when they told Lev how important he was in the scheme of things, Lev felt, for the first time in a long time, truly important.

Related Characters: Lev Calder, Cleaver, Mai, Blaine
Page Number: 284
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:
Chapter 68 Quotes

“You may be responsible for your actions,” Pastor Dan says, “but it’s not your fault you weren’t emotionally prepared for life out there in the real world. This was my fault—and the fault of everyone who raised you to be a tithe. We’re as guilty as the people who pumped that poison into your blood.”

Related Characters: Pastor Dan (speaker), Lev Calder, Lev’s Dad
Page Number: 328
Explanation and Analysis: