Alas Babylon Sparknotes

Shaun Hick once said, “You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.” This is especially true in the novel Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. To clarify, the book is set around the 1950’s and 60’s, when Russia and the U.S.A are going through a feud. The war ends up severely damaging the United States. In the shambles of Florida, a town by the name of Fort Repose stands strong and the people must strive to survive. The book centers on the protagonist of the story, Randy Bragg, and his family. In order to learn to walk again, the people of Fort Repose trade within each other, preserve and disinfect food and water, and use weapons for protection. To begin with, the people of Fort Repose learn to walk again by learning to trade with other people. For example when Randy wants coffee the only solution is

To explain, when the power goes out, Randy and Helen open the freezer only to discover that the ice cream has melted, but more importantly, the supply of meat may go bad. Helen says, “‘The meat won’t spoil for another 24 hours, I’m going to salvage what I can’” (152). If Helen did not preserve the meat, Randy and his family could have lost food for a week. Since the food was preserved they did not have to eat raw, diseased, and infested food that may or may not have killed them. Furthermore, another example of the people of Fort Repose having to disinfect food and water is when Dan Gunn questions the Sunburry’s about their water usage. Frank writes, “Even so, they boiled [water]...all their foods except citrus they cooked” (248). This shows that like everyone else in Fort Repose; the Sunburry’s clean and boil their food and water. Without precautions, the people of Fort Repose could have all caught diseases from polluted water. To conclude, in order to walk again, the people of Fort Repose disinfect food and