Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon

*“In The End, It Is Our Defiance That Redeems Us.” – Mark Rowland*
“To the world you may be just another person, but to one person you may just be the world (Snyder, ThinkExist.com). In Pat Frank’s book, Alas Babylon, Randy Bragg is no one of importance. He is failed politician that lives off his family’s land in a small town, Fort Repose, in Florida. But For this small town lawyer everything was about to change. The United States had been on edge of Nuclear Warfare with Russia for years. Frank writes on about how one man, Randy Bragg, redeems himself from a failed politician to a somewhat of a town hero (Frank).
Pre warned by Mark Bragg, Randy’s brother, Randy prepares for the arrival of his sister-in-law, niece, and nephew; along with the nuclear war (Frank). Though Randy hopes to never see the day of nuclear war he knows Mark’s warning should not be taken lightly and beings to create a survival kit. Not knowing how long this war may be or what he should get Randy purchases abundances of milk, meet, candles, oil, gas, and several other items he believes will be necessary to survival (Frank 44,45). Randy was depending on having time for his sister-in-law, Helen, to gather all other necessary items he had over looked. But the Russians had other plans and though Randy had done his best to prepare himself for this war nothing could have prepared him for The Day (Frank).
The day nuclear war started marked the day when hundreds of major United States cites, such as Orlando, Tampa, Omaha, Washington, and countless others, were destroyed. This day “was known simply as The Day. That was sufficient (Frank123).” “People… inclined to split time split time into two periods, before The Day, and after The Day, the time off, what then seem...

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...ewhere new. This alliance between them, this community they had created, was more than just and alliance it was a family now. This town, this new Fort Repose was not an isolated town to them it was a place to hang their hearts, it was a place to go home to at night, it was home (Frank).

Works Cited
Frank, Pat. Alas, Babylon . New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1959.
George, Shannon. Quotery . 2013. 12 November 2013 .
"Protection In The Nuclear Age ." Protection From Fallout (1985): 4.
Rowlands, Mark. The Philosopher and the Wolf . New York : Pegasus Publishing , 2008.
Symonds, Peter. "World Socialist Web Site ." US think tank report weighs up "grim future' of nuclear war (2013).
Think Exist. 2011. 12 November 2013 .