After The Plague Analysis
Every day of the human life is faced with one goal: surviving. After the Plague by T.C. Boyle is a story of just that. In the beginning of the story, the reader is presented with a man self-named “Jed”. Jed is a writer who escaped to the mountains of California for seclusion and free flowing creativity. He soon gets waves of radio and news broadcasts speaking of an outbreak of a wide spread disease, eventually wiping out the entire population, leaving behind Jed and the few human beings who fortunately were able to escape the epidemic. A hiker named Sarai found Jed in his cabin and harshly begged for entrance. Through the story, Jed and Sarai discover they do not go well together and eventually lead out to the “new city”. There, Jed meets Felicia,
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This story is one pointing out the evil of humanity and the consequences that come out of that. The characters of the story understand the plague. Jed realizes that the “rat race” was bound to end. An ending always leads to a new beginning and this is what Jed feels is his purpose. He is the “creator” of this new world. The old world was drenched in humanity, a term who’s only meaning is evil. Human kind is a race filled with greed, hatred, anger, racism, sexism, and narcissism. This is where the character foil comes in: Sarai and Felicia. Sarai is introduced in the story through a mix of vulgarity and outright rudeness. When she demands Jed let her into his cabin, she gives the reader her first impression, one of harshness. Sarai did not want to accept the fact that haunted her mind, the idea that the world as she knew it was gone. She was stubborn. She is the representation of human kind. She reminds Jed of everything that was ever wrong with humanity, everything that was taken out by the plague. For any unknown reason, Sarai was left as that reminder. The earth was supposedly cleansed of all evil, but the plague happened to leave Sarai. The foil for Sarai is Felicia. Felicia represented everything right in the world. She symbolized earth, the pure, once untouched
This story is one pointing out the evil of humanity and the consequences that come out of that. The characters of the story understand the plague. Jed realizes that the “rat race” was bound to end. An ending always leads to a new beginning and this is what Jed feels is his purpose. He is the “creator” of this new world. The old world was drenched in humanity, a term who’s only meaning is evil. Human kind is a race filled with greed, hatred, anger, racism, sexism, and narcissism. This is where the character foil comes in: Sarai and Felicia. Sarai is introduced in the story through a mix of vulgarity and outright rudeness. When she demands Jed let her into his cabin, she gives the reader her first impression, one of harshness. Sarai did not want to accept the fact that haunted her mind, the idea that the world as she knew it was gone. She was stubborn. She is the representation of human kind. She reminds Jed of everything that was ever wrong with humanity, everything that was taken out by the plague. For any unknown reason, Sarai was left as that reminder. The earth was supposedly cleansed of all evil, but the plague happened to leave Sarai. The foil for Sarai is Felicia. Felicia represented everything right in the world. She symbolized earth, the pure, once untouched