The Program

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of death by suicide, depression, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and psychological abuse and manipulation.

“The Program makes us anonymous, strips us of our right to mourn—because if we do, we can get flagged for appearing depressed. So James has found another way. On his right arm he’s keeping a list in permanent ink of those we’ve lost. Starting with Brady.”

Due to the oppressive system of The Program, Sloane and James cannot express their emotions. To externalize his grief, James tattoos the names of his friends on his arm, including Brady. This quote foreshadows the loss of Miller and highlights The Program’s invasion of privacy to remove James’s tattoo when it only exists to remind him of his friends.

“‘Do you really think anything can ever be the same again? She’s empty, Sloane. She’s the walking dead now.’ I don’t want to believe that. I’ve seen returners for nearly two years, and although I’ve never had more than a standing-next-to-me-in-line-at-the-mall conversation, I’m sure they’re still people. Just…shinier, as if everything is great. They’ve been brainwashed or something. But they’re not empty. They can’t be.”

This quote explores The Ethics of Involuntary Medical Treatment. Miller believes that Lacey is only a shell of herself, while Sloane chooses to believe in the returner’s personhood, even if they seem different, because she does not want to believe that a person’s identity can be fully erased. Regardless of who’s correct, or if Lacey truly believes “everything is great,” the fact that Lacey changed without her consent is proof that she has endured unethical treatment.

“It’s a question we often ask ourselves: Would we commit suicide without The Program, or does it help drive us there?”

This quote emphasizes the paradox of The Program. While The Program claims to erase people’s memories to save their lives, Sloane wonders if the depression that people experience from seeing their loved ones forget them perpetuates the epidemic rather than slowing it. It alludes to the fact that the government is doing it less for public health and more for mass control.