How Does Bob Brooks Change

Although the novel World War Z, by author Max Brooks, consists of characters as authentic as real individuals, the way in which Brooks reveals the characters and the plot of the novel contributes greatly to its immense success. As a literary device, Brooks uses zombies to add dimension to the story of our society’s response to this enormous threat. Consequently, he implies that our society, largely based upon the idea of a hierarchy, plays a silent antagonist in the novel as the characters, in response to the system, act in inhumane ways to maintain their current social position or rise to another level rather than attempting to solve the existing problem. The characters, whom I believe to have best exhibited these behaviours would definitely
be former White House Chief of Staff, Grover Carlson and Director of the CIA, Bob Archer, whom I interpreted as conveyors of the message that the threat imposed by zombies, a terrifying and deformed species, is nothing when compared to the terrifying and deformed aspects of human nature. Bob and Grover, similar to many in the real world, delight in the position and authority their political power provides them. However, when the time comes to take care of the responsibilities associated with the position, they try their best to avoid them. Although Grover and Bob’s accounts of the war seem to be poles apart, the similarities between their usage of power and position to their advantage cannot be ignored, similar to their desires for power, but lack of responsibility towards the duties associated with it. Grover Carlson, holder of a prominent position as assistant to the President of the United States, holds many subjective perspectives and selfish viewpoints, something one would not expect from a person in his position. He does not hesitate to use his power and position for self-benefit similar to when he manipulates individuals to never let anything become a missed opportunity. He makes many, what society would call, unethical decisions and frequently supports placebos such as Phalanx to escape the resentment of the public. He feels no guilt, or very cunningly disguises it, as he tells the interviewer to “Grow up” when asked about how he felt about cultivating a false sense of security in the public’s eye. His nonexistent morals are showcased again as he confesses that he was only elected as the Chief of Staff after falsely committing to return “peace and prosperity”, (Brooks, 2006, p.76). Individuals in these positions should try and help the nation move forward, but politicians like Grover forget about who voted them in and focus on their own wants which consequently leads the nation, city, town to nowhere. Grover Carlson is still the deceiving and self-serving man he shows himself to be but he is honest about his actions no matter how unethical they may be from the world’s perspective. His lack of trust in other human beings can be seen occasionally as he reasons that people are selfish by nature and will do anything for their self-interests. He seems to cope with this aspect of human nature by living a life where he accomplishes his goals without regards to society’s perspective. Misusing authority for selfish reasons is not a rare thing to see in our world, but in World War Z, Bob Archer also commits the same misdemeanor.
Bob Archer experiences a drastic career change through the span of the war, but it’s mostly due to his intelligent method of misusing power and position.
The environment you are surrounded with undoubtedly influences you and it seems Bob just adapted to it without any resistance considering how many of the agency’s characteristics he inherited over his time of employment. The CIA is an organization one fears by name even if they are not intertwined in illegal activities and the fear it creates among people does half of the job for the organization. Bob’s job, to look for and analyze threats, was made to be effortless in many ways as the agency’s name was strong enough to eliminate many threats by itself. When using the CIA’s name to make his job easier, Bob sees no harm, but when that name adds responsibility to his platter, he does not hesitate to criticize the agency or the individuals of the nation claiming, “This was the advantage of our image as some kind of omniscient octopus. The only disadvantage was that our own people believed in that image as well, so whenever anything, anywhere occurred without any warning, where do you think the finger was pointed?”(Brooks, 2006, p. 58). Contrasting greatly with Grover, Bob seems to be one to hesitate or analyze to the extent that his ability to act is restricted. There were few instances where Bob truly let his personality show as if the things he had said had been rehearsed and decided upon earlier because he had the responsibility of protecting the agency’s reputation as they failed to do their job when needed. He learned through experiences that others believe in helping themselves first so if he wanted to gain the power and position he desired, it would be by sticking with the norms and helping himself before others so he has no idea for how to take responsibilities for his actions, but unlike Grover, he realizes his mistakes to a certain
extent.
We can expect that those holding political positions in our country’s government will take the responsibility of protecting us as individuals and as a nation. Grover, instead of taking care of these responsibilities, finds it easier to flee from them. Throughout his interview, he creates a variety of excuses to provide justifications for the government’s actions. He implies that they had no other options due to the shortage of funds and resources and they did warn the public about the outbreak through the internet. Additionally, he reasons that loads of people claim to have witnessed the “greatest threat to human existence,” (Brooks, 2006, p. 74) every day so their decisions, made after “careful evaluations” concluded that exposing the threat would cause all sorts of unwanted problems. They pretended as if the threat was nonexistent until the secret got out and the public’s rage became uncontrollable. Nonetheless, they saw an opportunity when Phalanx was invented and took it claiming that “You can’t stop the rain. All you can do is just build a roof that you hope won’t leak.”(Brooks, 2006, p. 76). If all of the leaders believed there is never a true solution to any problem, only a preventative measure, either the politicians were beyond successful in deceiving the public or the public was extremely stupid to vote them into power. They failed to take proper preventative measures as well because all he and his party did was push off the problem as far as they could, similar to Bob and the CIA.
The CIA is an organization where claiming the warnings of a potential threat were lost in a pile of papers is unacceptable considering the responsibility it has in guarding the security of the nation, so that excuse should never be given by its director. Bob was an ordinary, powerless employee in the past where the CIA made these mistakes, but now that he is the director, shouldn’t he have learned to be more responsible? Like Grover, Bob also makes a variety of excuses on behalf of the CIA for not living up to their expectations. If the organization benefited so much from the power associated with its name, I find it hard to believe that their organization does little to prevent that reputation from getting tarnished, unless it was the only way to cover up their past mistakes. Within lies or excuses small faults can be noticed in explanations Bob’s mistakes reveal his hypocritical side. On one hand, he claims the agency was working its hardest yet he also explains that China was so efficient at covering up after their tracks that finding out the truth was nearly impossible. Such an excuse from a normal individual would be acceptable, the CIA giving the same excuse proves the fact that they were not doing their jobs properly and Bob’s claims that was because they “were left with were the dregs, a bunch of brownnosing, myopic eunuchs” (Brooks, 2006, p.61). As a species full of ego and greed, accepting our mistakes is very difficult, but if you are responsible for making such enormous decisions you should definitely think twice before acting upon them.
Bob and Grover, both failed to succeed at making the correct decisions during a time of need, but the sad part is they weren’t able to apologize for them due to their egos and desires to have power and position within the society, the society, which almost crumbled to the ground due to egos and desires of those all around the world. We as a society, are by no means perfect, and there will never come a day where we are because the fact is that the nature of our species makes individuals greedy and power-thirsty. This is not a significant conflict every day, as we have learned to coexist with each other, but when the time comes where a danger lingers overhead, one will most likely protect things dear to them before thinking about the wellbeing of others so Bob and Grover cannot be ostracised by the rest of us for that characteristic. They can, however be held responsible to a certain extent for manipulating others and never taking responsibilities for their actions. Ultimately Brooks tries to show that the ineptitude of those in our governments was beyond detrimental for all of those who had put their trust in them. Grover and Bob both had a different outlook on the world, correct in their eyes, but unethical in the eyes of society. In conclusion, the reason we will never have be able to have a perfect and peaceful society is that each individual has their own set of rights and wrongs and without brainwashing each individual we will never truly be able to agree upon one thing.