50 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren OliverDelirium
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
Content Warning: Brief mention of suicidal ideation.
As Alex and Lena leave the prison, Lena feels lost and numb. They hide in an alley when Lena starts feeling physically ill at the realization that her family must know that her mother is alive. She does not want to return home because she feels violently angry. They argue about running away. Alex reassures her that her mother loves her and that she didn’t come back for Lena after escaping because it isn’t safe. He tells Lena that he loves her, and Lena is finally able to reciprocate by saying the words out loud. Lena suddenly realizes, thanks to her mother, that true love sometimes requires sacrifice. Lena is aware of everything she will be giving up by running away to the Wilds but decides to choose freedom with Alex. They plan to leave in a week after preparing and gathering supplies. After they escape, they will be invalidated and killed if they are ever caught.
Back home, Lena calls Hana to meet up for a run. Lena’s anger at her family has receded now that escape is imminent; she instead feels pity for them and their fate. Carol reminds Lena that her cure is in 16 days, so Lena pretends to be excited again. Lena finally realizes that the cure is about fear and control, not happiness.
Chapter 24 Summary
Lena and Hana go jogging, and Lena is relieved that it feels so normal. She also feels nostalgic, as this may be her last opportunity to spend time with Hana. Feeling guilty, she confesses the entire escape plan to Hana, who is stunned and upset. Lena invites her to run away with them, but Hana refuses; despite her brief rebellion, she doesn’t want to give up her predictable life. Lena also reveals the truth about her mother in the Crypts, which helps Hana better understand Lena’s decision. She tells Lena that she is brave and that she deserves freedom. They race back together, and Lena realizes that love can sometimes be a force of salvation rather than destruction.
Chapter 25 Summary
That night, Lena sneaks out to 37 Brooks but finds the gate locked with a new padlock. She assumes Alex is responsible, but when he appears and is also confused, she knows something is wrong. Suddenly, they are surrounded by lights and shouting voices; they have been caught. Chaos ensues as they try to evade regulators, batons, and attack dogs. Alex manages to get away, but Lena is trapped and knocked unconscious.
When she awakens, she is at home in her bed, in pain, and locked in her room. She hears Carol speaking to a regulator downstairs as they try to figure out the identity of the boy Lena was with. Lena is relieved that Alex is safe and unknown to the regulators. Rachel offers Lena some water and Advil; Lena is wary of the pills but takes them anyway. When Lena confronts Rachel about their mother, she realizes that Rachel knows nothing. Rachel calmly reveals that Lena’s procedure has been rescheduled to happen in two days and tries to convince Lena that it is for her own safety. Lena realizes that the Advil were actually tranquilizers, and as she falls asleep, she is tied to the bed.
Chapter 26 Summary
The next time Lena awakens, Hana is there. She claims that everyone is gossiping about Lena, but no one suspects Alex. Hana is being followed, so she cannot get a message to Alex herself. Knowing that they are under surveillance, Lena and Hana must communicate covertly by using code names and indirect phrasing. Lena drops hints that Hana should leave a note for Alex at the Governor statue and is relieved when Hana catches on. Lena wishes she could tell Hana that she loves her before she goes.
Chapter 27 Summary
Lena sits tied to her bed, hoping Alex gets the message in time before her cure the next day; she has faith that he will rescue her. Her family takes turns guarding her, and Rachel tries drugging her again, but Lena secretly spits the laced water out. That night, Lena resolutely decides that if Alex fails to rescue her, she will kill herself to avoid being cured. She would rather die of her own free will than live under anyone’s control. She thinks of Alex and succumbs to the Coldness before falling asleep.
Shortly before dawn, Lena wakes to find Grace undoing her restraints. She proudly realizes that Grace is a silent resister. Lena opens the window and hears a motorcycle approaching. When she sees that it is Alex, she rejoices too loudly, alerting her uncle and the rest of her family. They try to stop her but are frozen in shock and surprise when Grace shouts at them to stop, for this is the first time they have heard her speak. Grace’s action gives Lena a chance to jump from the window and onto Alex’s motorcycle.
As they speed toward the border fence, they are chased by regulators in cars and helicopters. Near the fence, Alex suddenly stops, gets off the bike, and instructs Lena to drive straight into the now fully electrified fence to cut its power. He tells her that she must then jump and climb over without looking back, promising to be right behind her. The helicopter starts shooting as Lena takes the bike and Alex jumps on behind her, and Alex is shot before Lena crashes the bike and does as he has instructed. When she climbs over the fence, she looks back and realizes that Alex is still on the other side, mouthing the word “run.” He has sacrificed himself to save her. She runs into the Wilds, remembering her mother’s last words to her and believing in her own resistance.
Chapters 23-27 Analysis
The final chapters of the novel highlight the concept of duality that has been consistently present throughout Lena’s life. Torn between believing the propaganda that surrounds her and seeking out the truth, she struggles to decide which path to take and wavers back and forth quite a bit before finally choosing a side. There are reminders of this duality everywhere: in the way her mother’s true fate is “both miraculous and fiercely painful” (358); in the way love is both the reason her mother is imprisoned and the reason she escapes; in the way Lena feels “[l]ost and found and lost again” after everything she has gone through (371). The duality of human emotion is significant because although it may make life more confusing, it ultimately proves the idea of Love as a Strength because love can make a person weak. As Hana claims in the very first chapter, it is impossible to have true happiness without first experiencing true unhappiness. Lena has experienced both many times over by the end of the novel and is finally able to appreciate Hana’s words despite the lack of resolution at the novel’s conclusion.
The ending also emphasizes the importance of sacrifice. Lena believes she finally understands that her mother named her after Mary Magdalene because the biblical story is a reminder of Joseph’s sacrifice in the name of love. As Lena muses, “I guess that’s part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up” (379). This idea foreshadows Alex’s sacrifice so that Lena can safely escape, and in a further emphasis of this concept’s importance, Lena herself is even prepared to make the same type of sacrifice. Her previous resolution to kill herself rather than undergo the cure and live without love drives home the depths of both her commitment to revolution and her love for Alex. In contrast to Lena’s powerful self-discovery, Hana is not prepared to make a similar sacrifice despite her moments of rebellion throughout the novel. Ultimately, she chooses to remain in Portland and go through with the cure instead of escaping with Lena and Alex, representing the segment of society that recognizes a civilization’s inherent flaws while failing to take action against such oppression. Paradoxically, Hana’s definition of sacrifice is embodied in giving up her own free will to maintain the status quo of the society in which she lives.
Additionally, the end of the novel continues to develop the animal motif. Lena describes the cruel Ward Six guard as having evil, snake-like eyes. Similarly, the old Ward Six guard, who has been recently imprisoned, is so disheveled and animal-like that “[y]ou would never even know he was human” (366). This is common for all prisoners of the Crypts: They are treated like animals and seen as less than human for their perceived betrayal of the state. The guard even refers to Lena’s mother as a “rat” because of the countless engravings and scratches on the walls of her cell (368). There is a deliberately cruel power in this dehumanization, for it shows that the government is in control and can belittle and even kill its subjects at will. However, the animal motif is also employed to portray Lena and Alex’s oppressors in an equally negative light, for Lena refers to the regulators that chase her and Alex as “insects” and “cockroaches” for their sinister yet mindless intentions and behavior (435, 440). She also compares her cousin Grace to an “industrious animal” that gnaws through Lena’s restraints to free her (426). Therefore, dehumanization becomes empowering in the end and emblazons the literal path to freedom.
While the ending remains unresolved, it also sets up the conflict for the next book in the series: How will Lena make it on her own in the Wilds? How will Alex escape the clutches of the government? Ultimately, Lena must literally and figuratively move forward without looking back—just as Alex instructs her.
