Earth Abides

Ish convalesces, still in shock over Joey’s death. He despairs that the Tribe, as a social experiment, seems to have failed: Death and group-sanctioned murder have re-emerged. He asks Emma if their typhoid tragedy is some cosmic punishment for killing Charlie. She reaffirms that they did what they thought best, and any god who does not “tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them” (273) is not a god she wants to believe in. He decides to focus on more modest plans for the future. In time, some of the group begin to clamor for a burial service, and, despite the personal pain it would bring him, Ish agrees. Ezra presides over the ceremony, commemorating each child with a brief story of their life.

Digression: Since the dawn of civilization, humans have incorporated ritual into death, finding symbolic value in burial or cremation. When humans forget or forgo these rituals, “then we shall no longer be men” (278).

After the ceremony, Ish wanders aimlessly, hammer in hand. He worries that it has become a totem, a source of superstition for him, and he resents the artificial value he has placed on it.