Z For Zachariah

“Suppose a car came over the hill, and I ran out, and whoever was in it got out—suppose he was crazy? Or suppose it was someone mean, or even cruel, and brutal? A murderer? What could I do?”

Ann struggles with the tension between community and autonomy. Despite her desire to have another human in the valley, she has enough intelligence to resist the urge to immediately go to the approaching man. She mentally draws a line for herself in the sand before Loomis even arrives: She is willing to share the valley, but not with someone who will abuse and control her.

“There is a flat place where the road first reaches the top of the hill—a stretch of about a hundred yards or so before it starts descending again, into the valley. When you get just past the middle of this you can see it all, the river, the house, the barn, the trees, pasture, everything. […] As it’s spring, today is all a new fresh green.”

O’Brien’s use of imagery vividly describes the valley, providing the reader with a sense of space while also conveying Ann’s knowledge of the land she inhabits. This knowledge will become an invaluable resource for Ann, as she understands nature in a way that Loomis does not, allowing her to survive. Additionally, the setting is established as a time in spring, when everything is “new.” This is a metaphor for Ann’s situation in the novel since, just as nature is starting a new time, she, too, is starting anew with the arrival of Loomis.

“The sound of his voice was nice, a strong sound. For a minute I almost changed my mind. It came on me in a rush, very strong. I wanted to run down the hill through the woods and call. […] With the long hair, the beard, and the pale white color he looked quite wild but also, I have to admit, rather poetic.”

Ann’s initial descriptions of Loomis show her initial attraction to him, as she believes that his voice is “strong” and that his look is “poetic.” These thoughts give insight into her relationship with Loomis throughout the text. She desperately wants him to be a good person so that she can build a life with him, lending insight into why she is so willing to forgive him each time he does something that makes her uncomfortable or afraid.

“It is Sunday. Ordinarily that would mean I would go to the church in the morning, and try to make the rest of the day a day of rest. Sometimes I would go fishing, a practical way of resting. I would take the Bible with me to the church, and some flowers for the altar in spring and summer. I did not pretend to have any real service, of course, but I would sit and read something from the Bible. Sometimes I chose—I like the Psalms and Ecclesiastes—and sometimes I just opened it at random. In the middle of winter, I usually did not go; there was no heat and it was too cold.”

In the Edenic environment of the valley, Ann practices her religion in the same loose and free way in which she does everything else. Instead of going to church out of obligation, as she did before the war, she now goes only when she finds some benefit from it. The church serves as a source of comfort and support in the novel when she needs it, an important part of her life but one that has been superseded by her practical need to survive.

“[Loomis] said all this in a very matter-of-fact way; he was calm about it. I think I would have been hysterical. However, I tried to stay calm, too, and be practical.”

In their first real conversation, Loomis describes to Ann the amount of radiation that he absorbed and the harm it will inflict on his body. Ann notes the “matter-of-fact,” calculated way that he discusses his own death, emphasizing his scientific background. This assessment conveys the theme of science versus nature, as Ann compares herself to Loomis in the way they view death. These thoughts give insight into Loomis’s anger when he later finds out that Ann cared for him instead of working in the field. While Ann values human life, Loomis thinks about it in a calculated, practical way.

“‘Who was Edward?’ Because that was the name he had called me when he first saw me in the tent, when he was delirious. For a second after I asked the question I thought the sickness had come back on him, because his eyes got a wild look again, as if he were seeing a nightmare. The hand holding the glass of water opened, and the glass slipped and fell to the floor.”

Loomis’s reaction when Ann first mentions Edward foreshadows their troubled past. He is so startled that he drops a glass and then struggles to answer her for several moments. The tension and unease of this moment portray conflict and a disturbing history between the two, a conflict that will become central to Loomis’s character.

“With him in the valley—in the house—I decided I should cook better meals than I did when I was by myself. For one thing, as I said, if he was going to be sick, he ought to build up his strength. Anyway, I like to cook, but when I was alone I frequently just did not bother—it seemed silly just for one.”

The things that Ann does in the time of Loomis’s lucidity—bathing, dressing nicely, and cooking again—reveal her true feelings about Loomis. Because she is writing the story in her journal, she covers up her actions with practicality, arguing, for example, that he needs better meals “to build up his strength.” However, underneath these thoughts is the question of why she is starting to “bother” now that Loomis is here. On some level, she strongly desires to impress Loomis and have a good relationship with him, lending some understanding as to why she brushes aside her instincts when Loomis begins to make her uncomfortable.

“‘And you’ve been doing all this with a shovel. Don’t you realize it would be simple to take the motors off the pumps and work them by hand? There may be four or five thousand gallons there.’ He smiled, but it made me feel stupid.”

This is the first moment that foreshadows Loomis’s controlling, belittling nature. He makes Ann feel “stupid” for not understanding the pumps, questioning her judgment and her knowledge for the first time. This interaction conveys The Conflict Between Technology and Nature: Loomis ignores everything that Ann does know—how to care for the animals, plant a garden, cook for him, and more—to belittle her for something technological that she does not know.

“Thinking about Sunday School and about Mr. Loomis getting angry, I wished I were back in the cave again. It seemed cozier somehow. Finally, I decided to go sleep there (I had left some blankets and stuff up there) and come back early enough so that Mr. Loomis would not know I had been away.”

After Ann and Loomis have their first two uncomfortable moments—his judgment of her for not knowing about the pumps and his anger over the fact that she corrects him when he says he had “the best evening” ever (74)—her instincts tell her to return to the cave. She is unable to articulate why she feels this way, but it is ironic that she would feel “cozier” in a cave than her own home. These thoughts show Ann’s intelligence and the strength of her instincts, as her subconscious is telling her that something is wrong before she can acknowledge it consciously.

“When Mr. Loomis recovered from his sickness, there was no reason why we could not plan to be married in a year; that is, next June, perhaps on my seventeenth birthday. I knew there could not be any minister, but the marriage ceremony was all written out in the back of the hymnal. There should be a ceremony; I felt strongly about that, and it should be in the church, on a definite date, with flowers.”

Despite Ann’s intelligence and her strong instincts, the reader is reminded that she is still only 15 years old, emphasized by the immaturity of her thoughts. Despite Loomis’s recent actions that make her uncomfortable, she is still thinking strongly about a future together with him. Not only that, but one of the key components of that future is also a wedding ceremony, highlighting her desire to have some semblance of normalcy and, ultimately, humanity in her life.

“I was very fond of poetry, and this one, one of my favorites, was a sonnet. It began: ‘Oh earth, unhappy planet born to die, Might I your scribe or your confessor be.’”

This poem is an allusion to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Epitaph for the Race of Man.” These lines convey how Ann sees herself—as the “scribe” of humanity as she writes what is possibly the last written record. However, the parts of the poem that she omits are equally important to her situation. The rest of the poem discusses how humans will be responsible for their own downfall. For example, the lines “You shall achieve destruction where you stand / In intimate conflict, at your brother’s hand” emphasize that conflict between humans will lead to the destruction of humanity (St. Vincent Millay, Edna. “Epitaph for the Race of Man.” Lines 209-10). This idea is equally applicable to Ann’s situation, as The Desire for Power will lead Loomis to destroy Ann’s home and her hopes of continuing the human race in the valley.

“I do not want to make it sound as if I am extremely religious, but I did not know what else to do, so I thought I might pray. I said I thought it might do him some good; maybe what I really thought was that it might do me some good. I cannot be sure. But I knew he needed help, and so did I.”

These thoughts from Ann, while she tries her best to help Loomis heal, further develop her relationship to the church. Praying in the church helps her feel as if she is doing something for Loomis. In this way, faith serves as a source of hope and support for Ann, even if organized religion no longer exists in her world.

“I was worried not just about whether he would live, but about what had happened in the laboratory—what I had heard happening in the laboratory—because that is what I had done, just as surely as if it were a recording.”

This simile—comparing Loomis’s dream about Edward to an actual recording of the events—conveys Ann’s certainty about the events that happened. Between Loomis’s words and the confirmation from the bullet holes, she is absolutely certain about what happened to Edward. This idea is important because, without any doubt in her mind, she can assess Loomis’s character and what he has done with certainty.

“At the time [Loomis] surely still believed that there might be groups of people alive in shelters […] and the suit, the only one of its kind, might be the only way to contact them. It was too important to waste. If he was thinking about that, and if Edward would not consider it, if Edward was being selfish and foolish, then Edward was wrong.”

Despite Ann’s certainty that Loomis is a murderer, she still rationalizes what he did and attempts to justify it so that she feels safer living with him. While conveying Ann’s immaturity, this self-deception more importantly conveys the theme of the tension between community and autonomy. Ann is so desperate for human connection that she is willing to live with Loomis, even if he killed another person, as long as she can justify it in her mind.

“Thinking about this I get really excited. Yet I am not sure. I thought: if it could be done, if the books would become safe to handle, and Mr. Loomis did not want to go, I could go. That is, if he would lend me the safe-suit. And that thought brought me back to Edward, with a jolt.”

After Ann thinks of getting novels from Ogdentown, she wonders whether Loomis would allow her to go get them, but the idea of borrowing the safe-suit scares her after what happened to Edward. This thought shows Ann’s true feelings about the situation with Loomis and Edward: Even if she tries to convince herself that Loomis needed to kill him or did so in self-defense, she will never truly be comfortable with Loomis. These instincts foreshadow the conflict between the two, as she will always be uneasy and uncertain around Loomis with the knowledge that she has.

“He sat in the chair all morning—rather like an overseer—watching while I plowed, harrowed and then planted the two rows of beets.”

This simile—comparing Loomis to an overseer on a plantation—emphasizes Ann’s growing discomfort with Loomis’s controlling nature. She repeatedly uses the word “uneasy” to describe how he makes her feel, yet she cannot specifically explain why. Instead, this simile conveys the way that she is beginning to see her relationship with Loomis: her doing the work at his bidding while he supervises. Ann is giving up more and more of her freedom—such as her decision about what to plant and when to plant it—in exchange for keeping Loomis happy.

“I told myself it was not really so important. It was the kind of thing girls at school used to tell about after they had a date. But it happened when they were on their way home to their parents. It’s different when there’s no one to turn to or tell about it.”

Because Ann is still just a teenager, she tries to rationalize Loomis’s actions by comparing them to the limited life experiences that she has. While this shows her immaturity, it also shows her clinical and logical thinking, as she compares Loomis’s handholding to the handholding that occurred with other girls in her class and recognizes the difference between the two. Even though she may not be able to articulate that Loomis’s actions were an act of sexual aggression and control, she does still recognize why it is wrong and makes her feel so uncomfortable.

“‘Read what?’ I was not very eager to do it, partly because I was tired, and partly because it seemed strange and unnatural. Why should he want me to read to him when he knew how to read himself?”

O’Brien uses parallel scenes to emphasize just how much strain has been placed on the relationship between Ann and Loomis. Earlier in the text, Ann had no issue reading to Loomis, and she actually enjoyed it due to her love of poetry. Now, however, after he has become increasingly controlling, she thinks of the act of reading to him as “strange.” O’Brien uses a similar scene in which Ann plays the piano to further show just how much Loomis has impacted Ann, even taking away her love of literature and music.

“There was no breath of wind; everything was quiet; it was the time of the long twilight that valleys have while the sun is still setting outside. We walked slowly down the road to the church, and I felt glad and almost peaceful again at being away from the house.”

As Loomis takes control of Ann’s life and her home, she finds peace and comfort outside in nature. This emphasizes the theme of the conflict between technology and nature. Ann understands and is connected to nature in a way that Loomis is not. While Loomis—representing technological control—takes over her life, she finds peace only when she fully steps outside of his influence and connects herself to nature again.

“Mr. Loomis would have to cook for himself. Should I continue to bring him supplies from the store? I did not think he could walk far enough to get his own, not yet. I could not let him starve, no matter what he had done.”

Ironically, even after Loomis tries to sexually assault Ann and she flees from the house, she still is concerned about his survival and trying to find a way to help him. This emphasizes Ann’s conscientious and empathetic nature, which stands in stark contrast to Loomis’s controlling and predatory behavior. Ultimately, this contrast in their characterization emphasizes the theme of the conflict between technology and nature. While Loomis tries to dominate Ann and the natural world, he lacks a conscience, reflecting the world’s pursuit of unchecked military strength and scientific advancement.

“Suddenly I had a feeling he knew I was watching. Or worse, that he hoped I was. I felt slightly sick; I was in a game of move-countermove, like a chess game, a game I did not want to be in at all. Only Mr. Loomis wanted to be in it, and only he could win it.”

Ann uses a simile in her journal to understand what is happening between her and Loomis as she hides from him in the woods. She compares their actions to a game of chess, where opponents are constantly considering what moves the other will make, trying to block their moves, and adapting their own strategies based on what the other does. Ann and Loomis are each constantly trying to figure out what the other is doing. Ann hides her location in different ways, and Loomis tries to track her and use Faro to find her. Additionally, the fact that it makes Ann “slightly sick” emphasizes how sadistic Loomis is: He is making a game out of trying to harm and capture a teenage girl.

“And suddenly that small friendly dog, David’s dog, was an enemy, as dangerous as a tiger, because I knew what he was going to do.”

This simile—which compares Faro to a tiger—highlights the damage that Loomis has done to Ann’s life. He has taken her friendly dog and corrupted him, using him as a weapon to track Ann. This emphasizes the theme of The Desire for Power, as Loomis is prepared to use whatever he has at his disposal to control Ann, including shooting her, using Faro as a weapon, and even sacrificing Faro’s life.

“I would go as Mr. Loomis had before me—wearing the safe-suit, pulling the cart. I would take the binoculars, and perhaps the gun.”

That Ann considers taking the gun conveys the degree to which her encounter with Loomis has robbed her of her innocence. She is more aware now than she was before that the world is full of potential danger and that she must protect herself. However, ironically, Ann still uses the word “perhaps” when she considers whether to take the gun. This highlights Ann’s innocence, as even after her horrific experiences with Loomis, she still wants to believe that the world is a good place.