Activism, Compassion, and Atonement Theme Analysis

Once Connor and Risa find themselves in the hands of sympathetic adults who want to save them from being unwound, the novel begins to pay close attention to the avenues available to individuals who wish to push back against the system and fight for a better future. Specifically, though it does illustrate that turning to terrorism, as Lev does, is one available path, it shows clearly that activism and resistance that are rooted in compassion, kindness, and sacrificing one’s own comfort or safety for the greater good are far more meaningful. Further, it also makes the case that a person’s past misdeeds can be one of the greatest inspirations to become an activist in the first place, and that centering one’s activism on compassion and making the world a better place is a healthy and meaningful way to atone for one’s past mistakes.

After being separated from Lev, Connor and Risa are shocked to discover the sheer number of adults willing to help them escape being unwound. A young teacher named Hannah helps get them out of a high school where they were hiding, while an old woman named Sonia inserts Connor and Risa into a complex underground system of safe houses that ultimately lands them in the Graveyard, a site for decommissioned airplanes in Arizona which is secretly a refugee camp that houses more than 400 Unwinds, run by a man known as the Admiral. The very existence of this underground system is a clear indicator that there are many people who don’t agree with the policy of unwinding and care deeply about children’s right to life and their right to bodily autonomy, even if caring means putting themselves in danger. The novel doesn’t go deeply into every resistance fighter’s reason for participating in this system, but not offering a reason also creates the sense that these people don’t necessarily need a reason. Rather, they resist because they know it’s the morally right thing to do and they have the power to do so—not necessarily for personal gain. Experiencing the kindness of these adults is ultimately what propels Connor and Risa into jobs at the Graveyard that situate them as helpers and leaders: Risa trains as a medic and provides basic healthcare and first aid, while Connor begins as a mechanic and eventually becomes the Admiral’s second in command tasked with discovering who killed the Goldens. This begins to show that kindness, compassion, and the best ways to help others can be taught and learned—especially when considered next to the fact that Lev, who experiences no such kindness before also finding himself in the Graveyard, ultimately turns to terrorism.

For some, most notably the Admiral, being a part of the resistance in this way is more than just a way to do good in the world. For him, it’s a way to atone for unwinding his son years ago. Connor learns that the Admiral’s son Harlan was the starting point for the urban legend of Humphrey Dunfee, whose parents, according to legend, went on a killing spree after he was unwound and murdered everyone who received a body part from him. In reality, the Admiral was a high-ranking official in government, and when Harlan began acting out, he was pressured to set an example and agreed to unwind his son. Helping other Unwinds, then, is a way for the Admiral to atone for doing an unspeakable thing to his son. The Admiral also sets examples of positive resistance in other ways. Though Unwinds at the Graveyard suspect that he’s actually profiting off of the Unwinds and even takes body parts from those he unwinds (there’s a great deal of speculation about his perfect teeth), in actuality, the Admiral wears dentures as an act of resistance against the practice of organ harvesting. Later, when he has a heart attack, he refuses a donor heart, and instead demands whatever heart attack treatment doctors practiced before they had a refrigerator full of working hearts to pull from. Through the Admiral, the novel offers a variety of ways that a person can resist by sacrificing his own comfort and making sure he doesn’t benefit from the system he’s trying to take down—actions inspired by his own horrific choices.

The novel’s ending briefly touches on how to be a good activist. Connor, in charge of the Graveyard now that the Admiral isn’t well enough to run it, takes the clappers’ example as an example of what not to do, and instead tells the Unwinds that they’ll focus on rescuing teens from harvest camps or from buses headed to camps. He insists that it’s extremely important to paint Unwinds as thinking, feeling individuals with a right to their own lives and bodies, rather than playing into the stereotype that Unwinds are violent kids who are better off unwound. In this sense, Connor also uses his own past to inform his activism, as he was one of those boys whose actions made his parents feel as though he’d be more useful to society unwound. Further, Lev hears that CyFi, a boy with a donated temporal lobe that causes him intense grief and suffering (he experiences thoughts and emotions that belong to the original owner of the temporal lobe), is going to testify in Congress in favor of stopping unwinding, or at least decreasing the window of time in which a child can be unwound, thereby making it easier for runaways to survive simply by making it so they don’t have to be on the run for as long. Through these examples, Unwind suggests that nonviolent activism, undertaken with compassion and respect for everyone’s bodily autonomy, is an extremely important and meaningful way through which to change the world—and on a personal level, standing up for what is right and helping others can help a person come to terms with their own horrific and traumatizing mistakes.