Human Emotions In Alas, Babylon, By Pat Frank

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In reading the book Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, I thought the main character, Randy, was quite believable. Throughout the book he showed many human emotions for example; when he received the message of “Alas, Babylon” from his brother he immediately went into action to prepare the necessary supplies he thought they would need. However, being a bachelor and having no one that he was responsible for he forgot some of the items that a family with children might need. He bought pounds of steaks since he was used to eating primarily meat and forgot to buy such staples as flour, sugar and salt that a family would need. When Peyton was blinded by the bomb he immediately stepped in to help her and protect her filling his role as her temporary father figure. Further on in the book in spite being the leader of their small group and always…show more content…
When they run out of water to flush the toilets, Randy’s group adapts by first bringing water from the river and modifying their flushing schedule to only twice a day. Later Randy came up with a more permanent solution of digging latrines in the groves. When the Gas stations ran out of gas; they became much more cautious in how they used their gas. They resorted to only making necessary trips, using bicycles and eventually walking to get where they needed to go. They also converted there motorboats to sailboats for river travel. Society had become a model of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. If there was a problem they had to learn to solve it. There were those who were unable to adapt to the situation. When the town first lost electricity, the first to succumb to the tragedy were the diabetics. They were not able to refrigerate their insulin so they died as a result. The second group to not adapt and ultimately lose the fight was the elderly. They had many physical ailments that they could not survive with under extreme conditions, lack of medicine, and lack of

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