Guilt

The author uses Trish's relationships with Baby A, Donor Y, and her late sister to explore the ways in which guilt might compel the individual towards change. In the early chapters of the novella, Trish attempts to bury her guilt with facts. In the opening chapter, "The Sleep Van," Trish says, "For bedside reading...I do a dozy arithmetic under the skirted blue lamp, until these numbers add up to a temporary conviction that I deserve a night's sleep" (19). Though Trish believes in the Slumber Corps' mission, and the recruitment work she does with them, her psyche is haunted by an underlying layer of shame. As the narrative unfolds, the reader learns more about Trish's sister's death, and her work for the Corps, details which reveal the depth of and reasons for her emotional complexities. In the aforementioned passage, and throughout this opening chapter, the reader...