More often than not, when something takes places makes a greater impact than where it takes place. Well “Unwind” falls right into that description because it takes place in the future after The Second Civil War, known as The Heartland War.
This war was fought to make a decision on whether or not abortion would be illegal. Instead of the outcome being making it legal or illegal, the Bill of Life was created. The Bill of Life proposed that when a child is between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, his or her parents can request that their child be unwound. Unwinding is the process in which all of the person’s organs and body parts are given to other people that need them. Had the book taken place in another time period, the Heartland War most likely would have either never occurred to begin with or it would have ended with a different solution. The setting of “Unwind” by Neal Shusterman shows that even though people are always trying to find ways to better the future, things can easily take an unexpected turn for the worse.
Ultimately, Connor’s parents and the other families in the neighborhood passing the storked baby around shows one way that the supposedly helpful solution to The Heartland War took a nasty turn. Unknown to Connor at the time, witnessing the death of the baby would have a very great impact on how he would act later on in life. Later while on the run from the juvey-cops, Connor’s memory of the baby eats away at him when he hears a little boy complain to his mother about being storked again. On page 63 the mother of the little boy says, “‘The law might let you stork, but only if you don’t get caught.'” In the future, this society has reached the point where it is completely legal to leave babies on another person’s doorstep. Had this been in a different time, the law would be different and unwanted babies wouldn’t be at risk of dying once storked, as the baby in Connor’s childhood had. Though it was thought that The Heartland War ended with the best solution, if it had been the best, then why was it possible for unwanted babies to die just how they would’ve before the war? It is obvious that this society opting to stork wasn’t a great choice and in some cases, it ended in the worst possible way.
