The Book of Daniel is replete with ideological tensions. Because Daniel’s world is shaped by the Cold War, the battle for global hegemony between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union, he comes to see everything around him in terms of dualistic competitors: himself and his sister, the Lewins and the Isaacsons, religion and secularism, innocence and guilt, and life and death. What emerges is the concept of life infiltrated by a Cold War mindset, in which existence is composed of competing dualities and tensions that push and pull people apart. Though these conflicts rarely erupt, the continuing tension means that they come to define the lives of everyone involved. Even on a narrative level, Daniel cannot escape these competing dualities. His third- and first-person narration and his non-linear structure divide his inner world into two, as well. He narrates the old world and the new as competing spheres of influence that battle for his identity.

The simmering ideological tension of the novel is understood most keenly by Susan and Daniel. They grew up in the shadow of their parents’ trial, a moment in which they were united by their suffering.