The Symbolism Of The Clappers In Unwind By Neal Shusterman

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Would you be willing to die to further a cause that you believe in? The novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman writes about a futuristic America where there was a second civil war called the Heartland War, which was fought over abortion, ended with the Bill of Life which states that there is no longer abortion but children from the age of 13 to 18 can be unwound. Being unwound means that children who do not further society, seen as problem children, or are given up by their parents will be sent to a facility where the children’s organs are taken out and they are given to other people. The story follows three main characters, Connor, Risa, and Levi; these characters are on the run from the police because if they are caught they will be unwound. In the novel the clappers are willing to die like modern day jihadists, in the way that they use their bodies to carry explosives and commit acts of terror, they have impacted the society of the book in many negative ways, and many of them have different reasons for doing what they do. A modern comparison to some of the clappers from the novel …show more content…

All of the clappers are looked at as mindless terrorists who will stop at nothing to hurt anyone who happens to be at the place that they are going to detonate themselves. However, with the example of Lev, he did not detonate himself instead he helps some of the children escape the harvest camp and gets them to safety, and this shows that even though Lev is a terrorist his conscience gets the better of him. The impact that the clappers have on the overall civilization of the novel is equal to that of modern jihadists on today’s society. The clappers commit acts of terror for multiple of their own different reasons many of the reasons are to please God and an act of