60 pages • 2 hours read
Robert C. O'BrienZ For Zachariah
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Desire for Power
Content Warning: The section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and death.
The central component to the conflict between Ann and Loomis is the struggle for power and control. While Ann does her best to get along with Loomis—forgiving him repeatedly for his increasingly controlling behavior and even for sexually assaulting her—Loomis constantly tries to dominate and control Ann.
Several moments in the novel emphasize Loomis’s need to control every aspect of his life as well as Ann’s. The first time, Loomis scolds Ann for ignoring the field while she cares for him in his illness. Then, he angrily tells Ann that she needs to plant beets and wheat, ignoring the hard work she has put into the field and her desire to grow as much corn as she can in an effort to ensure that both they and the animals survive the winter. Each time, Ann excuses his anger, noting how “he ha[s] begun thinking about [the valley] as his, too. […] That [i]s the change. And so he consider[s] the valley as much his as [hers]. [She will] have to get used to the idea” (143). Loomis’s words and anger make Ann “uneasy,” but she excuses it each time before ultimately acknowledging that Loomis has an incessant need for power and control. His physical acts of assault—both grabbing her hand and later attempting to assault her—reflect his need to have power over Ann. While she can excuse his words, and even tries to coexist with him after she flees to the cave, she ultimately recognizes, “[H]olding my hand, I could tell that he was taking charge, […] he was trying to control me, just as he had […] the planting, the use of the gasoline, the tractor, and even my going to church. And, of course, the suit, and, in the end, Edward” (162). While Ann strives to live alongside Loomis—acknowledging his scientific expertise as well as her knowledge of the land and the valley—he only wants to have power over her, ultimately forcing her to abandon him and escape the valley that has been her only refuge from the irradiated world.
As she tries to understand the power dynamic developing between her and Loomis, Ann turns to memories of Sunday school, reading the biblical story of Adam and Eve as an allegory for her situation. In the Bible, Adam and Eve are the first man and woman, with Adam created by God and Eve born from Adam’s rib. They live in the Garden of Eden in happiness and innocence until they eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. They are then expelled from the garden by God, forcing humanity to live in sin and greed. The title of the novel comes from a schoolbook that Ann read in Bible school as a child, with each letter of the alphabet corresponding to a person from the Bible. Because “A” was represented by “Adam,” the first man, and “Z” by “Zachariah,” she “assumed that Zachariah must be the last man” (75). As a result, the journal she writes tells the story of the last man and woman—Loomis and her—as they attempt to rebuild society in their own Garden of Eden: the protected, fertile land of the valley. However, their efforts at getting along, surviving, and ultimately procreating are destroyed by Loomis’s need for power and control. This idea reflects the story of Adam and Eve in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden; because they cannot control their curiosity and their need for knowledge, they are expelled from the garden. Similarly, Loomis’s inability to put aside his controlling nature destroys their chance at rebuilding humanity in the valley.
Ultimately, Loomis’s nature represents the destructive nature of humanity’s quest for power. Since Adam and Eve are said to have been expelled from Eden, humanity has constantly sought more and more knowledge and power, which led to the situation of the world at the time when O’Brien wrote Z for Zachariah. The Cold War was at its height, several proxy conflicts had broken out across the world including the Vietnam War, and the world’s superpowers were locked in a nuclear arms race. O’Brien’s novel serves as a warning to humanity, as the competition for nuclear supremacy will ultimately lead to the destruction of the world. Just as humans could destroy the world in their quest for power, Loomis destroys Ann’s world in his need to assert dominance over her.
The Tension Between Community and Autonomy
Ann struggles with an internal conflict throughout the novel as she seeks to adapt to life with Loomis in the valley. She is tired of being alone and longs for company, but she fears the loss of her personal autonomy. At the start of the novel, she acknowledges that she is not sure how she feels about having someone else in the valley, writing questions in her journal like “Suppose he was crazy? Or suppose it was someone mean, or even cruel, and brutal? A murderer? What could I do?” (6). After a year alone, Ann is excited at the thought of having another human with her, but her intelligence leads her to consider the negative things that may come with the end of her solitude. She values the autonomy that she currently has and hesitates to make herself vulnerable to another person. Her decision to hide in the cave and watch Loomis for the first several days reflects her uneasiness, choosing to monitor him and ultimately save him from his sickness rather than be alone.
However, as Ann learns more about Loomis’s character, she realizes that he is fixated on controlling her. While she initially excuses much of what he does, ignoring his negative attributes in exchange for building a life with him, she eventually realizes that he plans to take away her freedom completely. She is willing to exchange some of her autonomy for community, adapting to life with him—such as planting the entire field at his insistence and growing the crops he recommends—but not all, as she draws the line at becoming his “prisoner” and fully giving up her freedom. When she imagines herself “tied up like Faro” (191), she chooses to act, first fleeing to the cave and then ultimately leaving the valley.
Ann’s internal conflict and her relationship to Loomis are a microcosm of human society. In choosing to live in society, humans give up some of their individual freedoms, following the rule of law, living under a government, and devoting much of their lives to working and contributing to that society. Similarly, Ann is willing to give up some of her autonomy to coexist with Loomis. However, as she notes, “It’s one thing to hope for someone to come when things are civilized, when there are other people around, too. But when there is nobody else, then the whole idea changes” (6). In other words, the structure of society—rules, law, government—is what makes balance between community and autonomy possible, ensuring that individual rights are respected. When that structure is missing, as it is in the novel, it leaves some people vulnerable to the tyranny of others.
The Conflict Between Technology and Nature
Loomis and Ann are metaphorical embodiments of the ideas of science and nature in the novel. Through their conflict, O’Brien explores the relationship between the two ideas in humanity. In the 1970s, when the novel was written, the world was in the middle of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, and the space race. In this way, the world’s two competing empires were trying to use science to control nature—ultimately jeopardizing the lives of millions in their quest for scientific and military advancement. This conflict is represented through the conflict between Loomis and Ann in the text.
From the start of the novel, it is clear that Ann reveres nature and relies on it for her survival in the valley. As she writes in her journal, she vividly describes every aspect of the valley, giving the reader a sense of space for the natural world that she lives in. She uses that world to survive, both before Loomis arrives and when she is forced from her home. Additionally, she has an appreciation for nature within the valley, noting its beautiful sunsets and saving the crow’s life in the church. She notes, “[B]ecause the light was still dim, a morning twilight, the branches and all the white blossoms looked misty and delicate, an almost magical look” (80). Ann describes nature in this way at several points in the novel, appreciating the beauty of the world she inhabits. She also knows how to fish, unlike Loomis, and has no problem surviving for weeks in the wilderness, even giving Loomis part of what she catches and what she gathers from the garden, the cows, and the hens.
Conversely, Loomis represents science in the novel. While Ann lives in harmony with the natural world, planting and harvesting according to its rhythms and remaining within the naturally sheltered valley that functions as an allegorical figure for the biblical Garden of Eden, Loomis relies on science to master the world around him. He constructed a radiation-resistant suit that allowed him to travel for weeks through the irradiated world to reach the valley. The suit is a source of power and therefore immediately a source of violence—as soon as it was constructed, it triggered a bitter fight between Loomis and his collaborator, Edward, in which Loomis murdered Edward to preserve his access to the power that comes with the suit.
Once in the valley, Loomis disregards the things that Ann cares for. He scolds her for wanting to get novels from Ogdentown, he insults her for not knowing how the gasoline pumps work, and he corrupts Faro’s trusting nature by putting him on a leash and trying to use him to track Ann. He largely disregards Ann’s knowledge and experience, instead using her as a tool to increase his own power. Though he flaunts his scientific expertise, he knows nothing about living off the land and relies on Ann for vital knowledge. For example, after insulting Ann for not knowing about the gasoline pump, he immediately reveals that he knows nothing about fishing. Then, when he scolds Ann for not tending the field while he was sick, he asks her several questions like “[w]hen [] the frost begin[s]” and “[h]ow long [it] take[s]” to harrow the field (143). Without Ann’s able body and her knowledge of farming, he would be unable to cultivate the land, yet he still insults, uses, and ultimately abuses Ann. Ultimately, he tries to control her and force her to do what he wants, conveying his belief that science should control and dominate nature.
Ultimately, the conflict that occurs between Loomis and Ann conveys the conflict that exists in the larger world between science and nature. Just as humanity tries to control nature—in the form of wars, nuclear arms, and their race to dominate space—Loomis controls nature in the novel as he asserts dominance over Ann. However, the final pages of the novel stress the importance of a balance between these two forces. When Ann strikes out on her own—using the safe-suit that Loomis created—she is acknowledging the importance of both her knowledge of the natural world and Loomis’s knowledge of science. Even though the two could not coexist within the valley, there is hope that, with the help of science, she will find somewhere else where nature and science can coexist and rebuild a better humanity. In turn, O’Brien emphasizes the importance of these two elements working together within humanity as a whole to create the best possible world.
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