There are many themes in Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave. One theme that is very important in the novel is the idea that love can drive people to go on past their limits. This is shown in the ways many of the characters are driven to keep surviving for the people they love. Another shows that war cannot change who you really are at your core, as the characters’ actions prove throughout the book. In addition, the concept that people are defined by the choices they make is brought to the attention of the reader many times through the multiple series of choices the protagonists are forced to make. The idea that love can drive people to go on past their limits is prominently displayed in The 5th Wave. There are many instances in which the characters are driven to continue fighting for the people they love. Cassie, the main character, is repeatedly motivated to keep surviving out of her love for her younger brother, Sammy. She promised she would come find him after they were separated when soldiers took him away from the refugee camp they were living in. In addition, she is shot by a Silencer, a human with an alien downloaded into his brain, and forced to hide under a car. She has the choice to stay under the car and either bleed or starve to death, or get back out and try to fight back, which would most likely end in the silencer shooting her in a more fatal place than her leg. She thinks of the promise she made to Sammy and realizes that there would be no chance of her getting back to him if she stayed under the car,…show more content… All of these are displayed many times throughout the novel in different situations with different characters. These themes express a story of love, change, and survival in a time that promises and people are all humanity has
