Earth Abides

The university library, Ish’s academic sanctuary, contains “almost all the accumulated learning of the world” (282). As such, it symbolizes the protagonist’s conceptualization of civilization; it consequently also symbolizes the Old Times. Ish initially believes that any worthwhile society should center on book learning, but by the end of the narrative, he is forced to reckon with a world vastly different from the one that produced his beloved library.

While Ish frequently takes advantage of the university library by seeking books with practical survival knowledge, he believes knowledge is valuable primarily for intellectual enrichment rather than practical application; he sees knowledge as an end in itself. However, books and academia are luxuries in this post-plague America, where utility is more important than abstraction, and Ish reluctantly grapples with this reality. He clings to his old belief that arcane academic texts are still necessary and that, one day soon, the library will be open for business. Ish’s scholarly temperament is naturally predisposed to such hopes, but George’s carpentry and plumbing skills show more empirical and immediate value, even while Ish disparages George as “stupid.”

During his final trip to the library, Ish finally realizes a problem with his exclusionary attachment to the academia of his former life. When he finds an old textbook that he checked out just before the plague hit, he remembers that its contents are outdated and have been supplanted by new research. New knowledge replaces old just as new skills replace old ones. The library, like Ish’s intellectual elitism, is a relic of the Old Times—and in this new world, hunting, foraging, and farming are the necessary skills for the future.

Just as the library symbolizes the Old Times, Ish’s bow symbolizes the new. It also represents his acceptance of this new reality. The catalyst for his epiphany is Joey’s death. When Ish’s grand plans for the future of civilization—most of which rested on Joey’s shoulders—fall apart, so does his reliance on the Old Times’ ways of life. He accepts that raiding the grocery store and ruminating on political philosophy are no longer adequate survival strategies, and he finally does what he’s been prodding the group to do for years: act. He whittles a crude bow, fits it with a crude arrow, and shows the children how to shoot. In doing so, he takes the first bold step into the future. It takes a generation, but the knowledge takes root, and later, in old age, he sees his great-grandson hunting with such a bow. He takes solace in the fact that he has imparted a useful lesson, not an abstract one.

The refrigerator symbolically highlights humanity’s proneness to passivity. When the electricity fails, George speculates that it might be possible to find a gas-powered fridge, hook it up to pressurized gas tanks, and make ice. The group debates the pros and cons of the project endlessly, but Ish knows that “in the end, nothing would be done […] merely because everyone was fairly well contented with things as they were” (151). The refrigerator debate symbolizes, in Ish’s view, the Tribe’s complacency, its very human tendency to be reactive rather than proactive; they are relatively passive unless a dire need arises. Likewise, when an aqueduct ruptures and they lose running water, Ish sees a failure of foresight, and he chastises himself for not checking the status of the water supply earlier. In truth, no one can foresee every eventuality, but the loss of water is a manifestation of the refrigerator debate.