War
War is a major theme in the play, directly and indirectly. Ian is a "home journalist" who only reports about sexual crimes and abductions, focusing o local issues. When the Soldier comes in and asks him to write about him and the war, Ian says he cannot, that it is a job for foreign correspondents. In this way, the war begins to enter the hotel room, and its effects—which Ian has until now ignored—take center stage.
The Soldier is the character who most represents the difficulties and atrocities of war. He enters the hotel room with a sniper rifle, ready to enact violence on whoever he meets. He has been desensitized to violence and brutality by his service in the military, and he brutalizes and hurts Ian without a second thought.
In writing the play, Sarah Kane was inspired by the Bosnian civil war at the time, and wanted to reflect the horrors of war theatrically. Thus, the play looks at the theme of war both literally and more metaphorically. With the entrance of the Soldier, we see the ways that war can corrupt people and turn them into monsters. However, even before the entrance of the Soldier, there is a war playing out between Ian and Cate, an abusive and explosive dynamic that in its interpersonal strife mirrors the structure of war.
Sexual Violence
The more private war that occurs in the play is between Ian and Cate, and it is a sexually violent one. Throughout their stay at the hotel, Ian tries to coerce the much younger Cate to sleep with him, despite her refusals. Then, whenever he can, he forces himself upon her, masturbating himself with her hand and pressing himself against her unconscious body. He manipulates and coerces the innocent Cate into having sex with her.
The theme of sexual coerciveness is elevated when the Soldier arrives and rapes Ian. The soldier then sticks a revolver up Ian's rectum. In Blasted, sex is a violation, a horrific violence that is never reciprocated or consensual. In this way, sex is merged with war in Kane's vision: a violation or an unwanted advance, never mutual.
Coercion
Coercion is another theme in the play. Ian coerces Cate into staying the night with him, convincing her to do things she is not quite able to make sense of. Ian's coercion is a one-sided affair where he believes his actions are justifiable because he is a man and thus the dominant party. He has a sense of entitlement about his sexual ownership of Cate that leads him to do horrible things and behave in completely unethical ways with her. Thus, the sexual violence he enacts is always coming from a place that he thinks is justified, even when the audience can see that it is bullying and violent.
Survival
In the beginning of the play, Cate enters the hotel room with Ian, who carries a gun. The presence of a gun signals that something dangerous is looming, either between them or outside the hotel room door. The threat of violence is palpable, and the hotel room serves as a kind of respite, a place to survive.
As the play progresses, however, the threats begin to come through the door and take over the room itself. Ian proves to be an exceedingly violent and coercive man. Then, when the Soldier enters, a slew of threats follow him. He is a horrible man, raping Ian and sucking out Ian's eyes. When the Soldier kills himself and Ian is left in the bombed hotel, blind, he must decide whether he wants to survive or kill himself. Meanwhile, Cate is out alone in the city finding ways to survive the war-torn city, besieged by violent soldiers. She tries to take care of a baby, but the baby dies in her care. The final image of the play is Cate feeding Ian food that she has procured from outside the room, and him thanking her for keeping him alive. We are left with an image of precarious survival, two people who have faced such awe-inspiring horrors, who are still choosing to live.
Love
Ian justifies his horrible treatment of Cate, and buoys his manipulation of her, with his conviction that he loves her. In the moments when he is not being violent towards her, he exhibits an unusual tenderness, an almost childlike affection towards his lover. Time and time again he tells Cate that he loves her, but she never returns his sentiment. While his actions do not reflect a loving attitude, after a while, the audience must take Ian at his word, must believe that his violent rages and manipulative attitude are motivated not only by a profound loneliness but by a feeling not unlike love.
Class
While it is not directly alluded to in the text of the play, class is a theme in Blasted. Before we know anything else, we see the lavish hotel room, a fancy place filled with ornate objects and furniture. Kane describes the room thus: "the kind that is so expensive it could be anywhere in the world." Soon after, she introduces the characters, and describes Cate as "a lower-middle-class Southerner with a south London accent and a stutter when under stress." Before characters have uttered a word, we see a clash between the upper and lower classes—represented respectively by Ian and the hotel room he has rented, and by Cate—that foreshadows and underscores the power imbalances and hierarchical violence that make up the action of the play.
Hunger and Thirst
Ian is presented as an insatiable character. He continually orders food to the room, eats ravenously, and drinks to oblivion. Furthermore, he is exceedingly lusty and smokes like a chimney. As a character, he is defined by his appetites, his desire to consume, and it does not matter whether the thing he is consuming wants him to or not (as in the case of Cate), or is bad for him (as in the cigarettes and drinking). In this way, much of the thematic substance of the play is centered around consumption and the fulfillment of hunger and thirst.
By the end of the play, war has overtaken the city and the stage. Resources have become scarce, and desperation is high. As a result, Cate must resort to seducing soldiers in order to get her hands on food and drink, which she brings to Ian in his room, just as he is on the verge of death. By the end of the play, we see Ian's insatiable appetites enabled by the sacrifices of the young Cate. The theme of consumption takes on a new quality in the wake of war and squalor.
