Teen Rebellion Depicted In The Book Unwind

A Positive into a Negative
The book Unwind showcases how the odds can be completely out of a group’s favor at one point in a story, but can ultimately turn into something completely advantageous to that same group. The subject matters of this book are not pretty in the slightest. Rather, they include the likes of abortion, racism, teen rebellion and mental illness. Though this book tackles such dark subjects, by the end of the book one can see the light at the end of the dark tunnel.
The primary element of this book consists of a fictional procedure called “unwinding”. In this procedure, a person must stay awake while their limbs and organs are being surgically removed from their body. These kids were brought up to fear this procedure, yet it is encouraged as a sort of good for humanity. By unwinding someone, another person gets to enjoy the limbs of another whether it’s because they are in dire need of a heart or in desperate need of an arm. This

procedure was made as a compromise in order to stop the Heartland War, which was a war against pro-life rebels and pro-choice soldiers. The whole procedure is extra important because it is what brings the main trio, Connor, Risa and Lev, together. All three characters have different backgrounds and different personalities, but they all decide to work together for one purpose; to help other unwound kids find peace within themselves.
Teen rebellion is often seen as a negative of society.

Indeed, teen rebellion has been the cause of many accounts of vandalism, destruction and terror within the world, but mainly within the United States. However, in this book, teen rebellion is seen as a positive instead of a negative. Because the main teenage protagonists of the story have to deal with the possibility of them being unwounded, they are full of anxiety at every step they take, despite having moderate amounts of hope. It is fair to mention that the way that the teenagers rebel at first is not by causing fires or ultimate destruction. They rebel in the form of escaping arrest and hiding in various safe havens so that the Juvenile guards don’t take them to a harvest camp. This places another positive spin on the negative view of teen rebellion. Because they are so passive in their resistance, the main characters are unintentionally debunking the negative stereotype of juvenile teens and giving themselves a positive to fight

for.
The setting of the story also helps the argument that the three main characters are doing a good instead of a bad. A supporting character by the name of Hayden mentions that laws are ultimately “educated guesses at right and wrong” (Shusterman 172). This explanation raises a completely honest question: Are all laws morally just? History has proven that some laws were completely unjust such as segregation, slavery and gender restriction. Of course, those laws were taken down, some by rebels, some by protest and some by war, just like abortion was the cause of the second Civil War in Unwind. Real life American History has proven that a negative can eventually produce a positive. In the same way, the protagonists of this story start as helpless Ohio teens but end up as military type leaders that work to protect their fellow unwinds.
Mental illness is also widely known as a negative but ends up being a positive toward the end of the book. The first example of mental illness occurs with an umber (black) friend of Lev’s named Cyrus. His background includes him going through trauma because of a car accident and having to have a part of a kleptomaniacs brain placed into his. Cyrus tends to talk to Lev about how he wishes to have his own, African-American identity, yet gets a bad reputation because of the kleptomaniac piece of his brain. The sort of mood changes he has is sort of reminiscent of bipolar disorder. He breaks down in tears after stealing a gold ornament from a store while also being judged by a store clerk. This is where the story takes a turn of themes, as racism is set to be the prominent theme of this section in the book. Though the theme is touched upon briefly, it still gives Cyrus the sort of drive to speak out against unwinding. He eventually gets on the cover of a magazine because of his efforts, but most of all because one rebellious teenager helped another teenaged rebel when no one else would.
Another instance of mental illness occurs when Lev had been pushed into injecting his blood with explosive fluids. This had happened after his whole ordeal with Cyrus, which had toughened him as a person and made him see the world like a combat hardened soldier would. Because Lev is the only one who actually volunteered to be unwound this shows his development as a character. The negative he turns into a positive in this situation is how he gives the reader a sense of how perverted the laws of a country can be. Out of the three protagonists, he is the one who is affected the most by the unmerciful world that he lived in. His background includes a wealthy, religious family of ten people who had successfully brainwashed him into thinking that sacrificing his limbs and organs for the sake of benefiting someone else was the right thing to do. Indeed, he eventually sees past that nonsense and becomes the epitome of rebellious teens. As briefly mention before, it is fair to mention that the maturing of Lev could be compared to the maturing of a real soldier in the military. He goes from being a sort of spoiled little kid to a dynamic teenager ready to defend the rights of those meant to be unwound.
So all in all, the negatives in this book all lead to certain positives as the story goes on. Unwinding was put in place of Abortion in this book which led a phalanx of teens to fight against the unjust laws. In another sense, teenage rebellion is seen as a positive good throughout the novel as all of the kids expected to be unwound are fighting for survival. Lastly mental illness is what guides Cyrus to speak out against the procedure of unwinding when he had to where else to go. These elements bring unity to the characters and give them a since of brotherhood instead of just random rebellious teens.