Survival Of The Fittest In Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon

One often wonders if they would be able to survive in a time of crisis, some spend a bunch of time and money preparing for a crisis. Survival of the fittest refers to natural selection which is “the idea that species that acquire adaptations that are favorable for their environment will pass down those adaptations to their offspring” (Scoville 1). Survival of the fittest means “the best physical specimen of the species and only those in the best shape and best health will survive in nature” (Scoville 1). In Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon survival of the fittest comes into play in time of crisis; Randy Bragg, Edgar Quisenberry and Preacher Henry find this out the hard way after The Day. The Day is a day on which a nuclear war was started between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union dropped a huge amount of bombs all over the United States laying waste to many towns . The term survival of the fittest was first used by Herbert Spencer “in relation to Darwin’s idea of natural selection as he compared it to an economic principal in one of his books” (Scoville 1). Often these two get mixed up and one may become confused. Fittest in the case of Alas, Babylon means “the one best suited for the immediate environment.” This important fact
He makes himself the new sheriff in town. His first act is to find these highway men who robbed and left Dan for dead and kill them. They ended up finding the highway robbers and killed them all accept for one as they kept him as their prisoner to get knowledge from him. In the blood battle Malachi, Preacher Henry’s son, was shot, and ended up dying later back on River Road. To punish their prisoner’s crimes, Randy “wants him to hang” (Frank 278). The next day at noon the man was hung in the town square, “Randy ordered that the corpse not be cut down until sunset” this way nobody would mess with Fort Repose (Frank