Concept/Vocabulary Analysis Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition Literary Text: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank Summary It is the height of the Cold War and the Soviet Union has created the atomic bomb. With our attempts ending in only fizzling and sputtering, the United States is feeling H- bomb angst. Once Randy Bragg receives word from his Air Force brother Mark, that a nuclear war is imminent, he goes and tries to warn his friends, and wait while Mark s family comes to seek refuge in his secluded town of Fort Respose. Shortly after the family arrives, war breaks out between the two superpowers and the atomic bomb is dropped on the United States. Certain states are entirely wiped out including most of Florida but the small town of Fort Repose is left clear. Panic and anarchy ensue as the town realizes their desperate situation. Town officials are beaten and mugged, suicides frequent daily life, people begin wasting away due to radiation poisoning, and supplies diminish. Eventually, the government makes contact by way of the Decontamination Command and Randy and his remaining loved ones can finally leave and enter into one of the safe zones. They choose to stay, however, and continue in the civilization they have rebuilt there in Fort Repose. Organizational Patterns Alas, Babylon is divided into thirteen untitled chapters, each about twenty pages long. Although not explicitly divided, the book has two distinct sections: before the bomb was dropped, and after The Day when the bomb hit. The actual impact and immediate reaction is left out. The book merely refers to how the world looks and how life is to be lived after The Day. Central Questions and Enduring Issues What actually is human nature? Is human nature our ability to supersede the animals through love and our ability to prioritize over our carnal desires like hunger and fatigue for
something we feel is more important? Or is it simply that we have built up societies that have civilization, currency, government, education, occupations, and transportation? If it is the first, what about people who do not feel love for other human beings? Are they simply rendered inhuman, or just inhumane? If people never feel the need to sacrifice for others in order to protect or fight for the greater good, are they animals then? Or, even more importantly, if the latter is the central definition of human nature, what if all of those things completely disappear one day? What happens to that human nature we believed could not be taught, but was just biology inherently within us. Is it possible for human nature to remain a constant if everything that which previously defined it is obliterated in one fell swoop? At what cost is winning worth it? By the end of the novel, when Fort Repose finally receives contact with the rest of the remaining country, Randy wonders, Who won the war? Colonel Hart cannot believe he does not know that kind of fundamental information about the war, but he replies, We won it. We really clobbered em Not that it matters, and then the book ends. The entire driving action of this book was brought forth and pushed on by the threat of war, so how can the Colonel say that it does not really matter? The image is presented then, that even though the United States won this war, does the win overpower or even equal that which they lost in the process? Everything they ever knew and believed, their very existence, has changed and regressed so drastically, that was it really worth it? They had to retaliate the action taken against them, but look at the country now. Atomic bombs were created for one purpose to undo that which had previously been done to destroy. Centuries must pass before the contaminated zones can be inhabited again, and that is if there are even people again to inhabit them. They won, but truly, did they? And if so, does it matter? Issues Related to the Study of Literature Theme The Importance of Survivalism- The entire second half of the book is the people of Fort Repose trying to stay alive. Their gas and electricity are gone and water continues to grow scarce and food minimal, so survival mars their everyday thoughts. The battle is not even between just them and unresponsive nature, it is them and their equally starved and terrified neighbors. Also within this broader scheme of survivalism, the subtopic of sacrifice enters in. Many simply look out for themselves alone, but some have family a spouse and children they also choose to concern themselves with. These characters must find what is
actually more important to them. Sometimes that means feeding others before themselves, or standing guard instead of sleeping, or risking their lives to retrieve more needed supplies. The Effects of Decay- The theme of decay appears in several different ways in the text. The most apparent is the immediate result of the bomb s explosion on the country. Homes, complexes, schools, professional buildings, everything is destroyed. What took generations to build and will take centuries again to create is completely decimated in one moment. A more latent form of decay makes itself manifest in the nuclear fallout. On top of everything the survivors must worry about in order to continue to survive, they learn that portions of the world around them have been charged by the explosion. As bits of their flesh begin deteriorating away, they realize this one more crucial constraint on their lives. Another form of decay is more figurative than literal because it refers to the behavior of the survivors in Fort Repose. After the explosion, people begin reverting back to this animalistic sense they never before embraced, or perhaps even felt. They kill men for their supplies and do not stop to help a human being for fear that he may be one of those looters. Previously upstanding citizens beat doctors for their supplies and tools, and steal from their neighbors to make up for what they do not have. Good Samaritan attitudes and any sort of bond of reciprocity disappears and makes way for a look-out-foryourself attitude, because if you do not, no one else will. Looming Anarchy- Another theme presents itself as kind of a result of the others. Anarchy is what occurs in the book the moment people stop caring that their actions no longer coincide with what they used to believe; they begin to do that which was previously thought inappropriate or socially reprehensible. There are no wolves in Fort Repose, but when anarchy ensues, the people become the wolves. When the government of the United States is temporarily put on hold from the devastating aftermath of the bomb, the people had a choice. They do not have to choose anarchy, but whether they realize it or not, they decide to be anarchists by the choices they make. The anarchy ensues when each person feels like they must be an agent to themselves, and no one is around to tell them anything differently. Setting The novel takes place in Fort Repose, a small river town in Central Florida. Although surrounded by large towns and bustling business buildings, the town itself is
small. Fort Repose is small enough that Mark Bragg wants to send his family there to be with Randy because he believes the town is small enough that it will be spared in the bombing effort because of its insignificance. There is no defining feature of the town, it is just like any other little town where people go to live and then travel elsewhere to work. Point of View The novel is told from the third-person perspective of a narrator. When the focus is on each character we learn what they are feeling and thinking, also what they have to say, and then lose that insight once the narrator moves on to a different character. Occasionally the narration of the text is not told from any character s point of view, it is merely the narrator sharing a news brief, the layout of the city, or necessary background information. Affective Issues Related to the Work The book will emotionally affect the students because the story does not take place in a fantasy world of make-believe, or even in another country, it takes place in our own country, in a real place. The span of time this book focuses on has passed and we did not actually get hit by an atomic bomb during the Cold War, but the message is still pointed because it focuses on the fears of the times. When this book was written, the fear was of the Soviet Union and the reality of atomic warfare. Now we do not fear Russia as we did before, but there are countries we share the planet with who do not like us just as the Soviets did not. Especially since the epic tragedy of September 11, students know what devastation can happen at a moment s notice, with no warning, but still completely abolish our sense of power, control, safety. Focusing a novel on the fears of the people, the audience, is a powerful thing because it gives the topic a sense of timelessness. Citizens are always going to have things they are unsure of, uneducated on, or down-right afraid of. Students will be no exception. Vocabulary Issues The book uses certain terms that apply strictly to atomic warfare. Terms such as nuclear fallout, H-bomb, radiation, and flash burns are freely used because, at the time of publication, they were comfortable and common terms. It would be important to devise a vocabulary day as a before activity, or at least towards the beginning of the novel, so students can be as comfortable with these terms and Cold War Americans would have been.
Background Knowledge Because students were not alive in the 1950 s it is important to setup the background information necessary for understanding this novel. Specifically, where does the hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union come from? Intense political conflict continued between the USSR and the United States after World War II. The different governments expressed there dislike for each other through the use of propaganda speaking out against the enemy, the race to beat the other into outer space, and most important for the discussion of this novel the nuclear arms race. Atomic bombs, also known as antimatter bombs work down on the atomic level and release incredible energy and power from, comparatively, very little matter. The dropping of one of these bombs results in the death of hundreds of thousands; literally where there was previously something: people, cities, towns, homes, there will be nothing. Antimatter. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1991 and throughout the duration, this kind of desolation may have been a worst fear and potential reality of the people. Project Ideas Throughout the novel we will have discussed the idea of human nature: what it is, and if it is a constant biological issue. During the reading we see examples of how characters change because of what has happened. They mug and beat a doctor for his supplies and they cease to help little old women they come across for fear that she will be like they are: survivalist machines. We also see the converse; those who are able to stay together as family and friends and continue to look out for each other, and some who can even find love amidst the calamity are part of this human existence we read of. So what is human nature then? Can people change drastically like some of them did, and then we will just say it was always in their nature to be so? After many similar class discussions, students could write a final paper on the stand they choose to take. Because we have discussed both, there is, in theory, no wrong answer. Something this abstract cannot be definitely defined with no exceptions. As long as students support their stance with the text and solid ideas, they will have fulfilled the assignment. Something less conventional could be for students to create a title acrostic where they will take each letter in the title and construct a sentence about the text that begins with that letter. This could be a more fun and creative final project idea for the book. Or another more creative idea, they could create a character alphabet book where they choose a favorite character and then create sentences based on the order of the alphabet. All of these ideas would test a student s understanding of the text and give each of them a chance to be creative and come up with their own angle and develop their own voice.
Enrichment Resources There are many different texts that can be analyzed along with the study of this novel including film adaptations. Once the bomb is dropped, the concept of the value of human life begins to wane very quickly. Certain scenes from the animated film The Prince of Egypt or Ridley Scott s Gladiator could help to raise the question of human life and whether or not that can be quantified or if it ought to be above that level. Also perspective joins into this conversation of how much a life can be worth, or how worthless it can be made to be. Also the text brings up the thought that this conflict is not a war but a massacre. The difference between the two is subtle but apparent and could be communicated well in a clip from Joe Johnston s Hidalgo. Primary texts could also be read and discussed to make the understanding of the novel more fruitful. Many references to Charles Darwin are made in the ideas of survival of the fittest discussed in the novel, so it may also be helpful to actually look at some of Darwin s findings in his Origin of Species. Again along the lines of perspective, is thievery within the novel. When someone steals from you in such incredible poverty and dire situations, you are embittered or even enraged against them, but when you go and steal from someone else in order to better your own situation, it becomes easier to forget how it felt when you were the victim rather than the victimizer. This is communicated well in the accounts of the early American explorers John Smith and William Bradford and their exploits in the New Eden, America. Each have stories where he and his party steal from the Americans native to the land, but won t those tribes now be in want of food just as the settlers previously were? Also the very title comes from a passage from the primary text of The Bible in Revelations. When looked at as a historical text, mentioning no religious affiliations or a need for them, analyzing the passage and its implications from whence the title is derived could help to bolster the study of the novel. Author intent is an important point of view to study as well, and looking at the Bible passage will help students to see that. Also it could be fun to read from other apocalyptic texts to get a feel for how other authors have chosen to write about the similar topic. Cormac McCarthy s The Road would probably be the strongest example of the desolation and the extremely hopeless situation the survivors find themselves in. It also communicates well the unbelievable change from the accepted way humans used to act to the time when anything is accepted because every behavior is unpardonable.