65 pages • 2 hours read
S.A. BodeenThe Compound
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The Compound
The Compound is a miniature world, ostensibly outfitted with everything the family would need for fifteen years. It is a symbol of Rex’s desire to challenge himself and to test his own theories about existence, survival, and innovation under high-pressure. It also represents his instability and neglect for his family. He treats them as if they are laboratory subjects, and his property.
The Compound is a lie, and the ultimate symbol of the lengths to which Rex will go to deceive his family for his own ambitions.
Eli’s Hair
Eli lets his hair grow long while he is in the Compound. When he begins fighting against Rex and is determined to get the family out of the Compound, he asks Lexie to shave it off. Previously Lexie had told him that he was just like his father, and Eli has worried that it might be true. The drastic gesture of cutting off his hair comes after he has decided to fight against Rex and free his family at all costs. Eli’s hair was a symbol of his childhood. He wore it long while he let his father take charge of the situation. By cutting it, he asserts his own agency and begins to experience a new identity; he is no longer just Eddy’s twin, or merely a guilt-stricken boy trapped in the Compound. He is now proactive and driven.
The Supplements
The Supplements are the extra children that Eli’s mother has given birth to in the compound. Initially, Eli refers to them with disdain, as if they are mere products, like vitamins or protein. He avoids the yellow door because there are children behind it: members of his family.
Rex also views the Supplements as a commodity, but as the novel progresses it is clear that he sees his family as expendable in the same way. He might not eat them, but he is willing to use Lexie for cloning experiments.
Referring to them as the Supplements dehumanizes Lucas, Quinn, and Cara. Because they were potential candidates for cannibalism, dehumanizing them was more palatable to Eli than to the other kids, who took time to play with them and get to know them.
By the end of the novel, Eli has spent enough time with the Supplements that he has to acknowledge what they truly are: his siblings. They are part of his family, not supplements to their survival. Eli fights as hard to save Lucas, Quinn, and Cara from Rex as he does for his mother, Lexie, and Terese.
The Monet
Clea’s bedroom has a reproduction of a beloved painting by the artist Monet. The original hung in their mansion outside the Compound. While introducing her to the Compound, Rex told her that he had the Monet reproduced so that she would have something she had loved. His ostensibly thoughtful gesture becomes Clea’s strongest piece of evidence that he might be lying to the family about the Compound. She learns that the Monet is not a reproduction, but is actually the original. Rex would not have had time to get the original into the Compound unless he had known the exact time that the family had to flee from the nuclear attack. The beautiful piece of art becomes a symbol of Rex’s duplicity. He lies, even while providing Clea with something genuine.
