The Windup Girl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Chapters 28-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 28 Summary

Kanya rides her bicycle to Gibbons’ mansion, to consult with him about the new disease that has now killed three men. These men are the ones who became ill in the factory, and whom Hock Seng had Mai take to different hospitals. Kanya enters Gibbons’ mansion. Gibbons appears in a wheelchair by the swimming pool. He is old, ugly, diseased, and dying. Kanya refers to him as “the demon” who, “when [he] finally goes on to his next life,” “becomes a corpse they can burn in quarantine” (241). Kanya considers him the epitome of the calorie man, a member of the demographic that has caused the massive problems with the food chain. He is practical and cynical and tells her “we should all be windups by now. It’s easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now we could be well-suited to our environment” (243).

Before Kanya, Jaidee dealt with Gibbons. Gibbons asks Kanya what the Thai Kingdom will do when he dies:

And then what will you do when AgriGen and its ilk launch another assault? When spores float to you from Burma? When they wash up on the beach from India. Will you starve the way the Indians did? Will your flesh rot off you as it did for the Burmese? Your country only stays one step ahead of the plagues because of me, and my rotting mind (244).

Kanya has no idea the rust originated in Anderson’s algae baths. As she leaves, she sees the ghost of Jaidee shimmer and vanish at the seaside and thinks about her own complicated karma.

Chapter 29 Summary

Emiko is grateful to be staying at Anderson’s, who has gone away to make some business arrangements and will help her upon his return. As she makes rice, she thinks, “Look what service has brought you” (252) and smashes the pot against the wall. She has overcome her genetically engineered servility, and rather than wait for Anderson to return, she recklessly goes out into the night. She stares at her reflection in the water at a bridge when a white shirt approaches her. He is initially kind until he realizes she is a “heechy-keechy” windup. She flees and becomes lost in the crowd as he pursues her.

She makes her way to the Ploenchit. Raleigh tells her VIPs are coming tonight. Somdet Chaopraya and his men arrive. Kannika’s humiliation of Emiko proves particularly severe, and her recent feelings of independence vanish as quickly as they emerged. She obeys and “learns her place once again” (257). She feels particularly sorry for herself and yells at the cleaning man to throw her away with the other trash. Raleigh comes over to comfort her, tells her she has a big tip, and then goes back to the bar. The bartender pours a glass of ice and sets it atop the pile of money. She totters over and consumes the ice. She asks again about the villages in the North. Raleigh slaps her. She punches him back and then flees quickly while the men in the club try to shoot her. As a New Person, however, she is too fast for them.

Chapter 30 Summary

Kanya invades a village of shrimp farmers because some fish mites were found between the toes of one of the dead men. She carries a photograph with her and asks the villagers if she knew him. She discovers he worked in a factory; they point to his hut and go over to search it. Kanya sees a girl acting suspiciously; it is Mai, who reluctantly tells Kanya about the dead men and the SpringLife factory. Kanya comforts Mai to extricate more information from the frightened girl.

Chapters 28-30 Analysis

Chapter 28 focuses on the formidable Gibbons. Kanya hates the man. He is a smug braggart who still offers glimpses of his brilliance and competitive streak. He tells Kanya he worked for AgriGen simply for the money, and he is both author and savior of the precarious food chain that is always under threat from more blister rust or insect damage. He advocates a world of unnatural windups to establish a new civilization, since he considers it a waste to save humans, who will ultimately die anyway. Gibbons is resigned to his death, for he is old and his body shows the marks of an ugly disease. He delights in a ladyboy, Kip, who represents a traditional kind of sexual staple for pedophilic Westerners, and says that the only reason he helps is so that he can continue to have sex with Kip.

The sample that came from the algae bath and that has killed the factory workers is a by-product of the algae baths; Gibbons is convinced that it will mutate, which generates concern of a pandemic plague that Kanya must prevent. Her guilt, her deception, and the pressure of the new job torture her, as exemplified in the figure of the taunting Jaidee, who perhaps remains earthbound because of the conditions surrounding his death, and Kanya’s part in it. Her ability to get information from Mai results from her appeal to the girl that she will help save the Thai Kingdom. Kanya thus finds the answer to the mysterious sickness. Despite his cynicism and crudity, Gibbons remains a powerful figure, one to whom the Environment Ministry comes for help, no matter what they may personally feel toward him. Anderson’s own quest for Gibbons further confirms Gibbons as an odious and unfortunate necessity.

Emiko’s emerging independence is quickly dashed by Kannika’s horrific treatment of her. Emiko goes back to feeling like a detested object as Kannika insults and abuses her. Emiko feels shame and sadness at the way these men thoughtlessly treat her. Her flight to Raleigh’s club results in his own impatience with her. Her decision to break with Anderson, although short-lived, demonstrates that her inner nature has changed; she has developed into something more emotionally powerful than a thing to be raped by drunken men.