After_the_Plague

“After the Plague” The short story “After the Plague” by T.C. Boyle, the beginning of the end of the world has come as we know it. The plague has spread rapidly all around the globe leaving only those fortunate enough to had been cast away from civilization alive, one of those people being Mr. Halloran. As he dwells in a cabin located in the woods, lonely, but away from harm, he is faced with a challenging decision when he hears a knock on the door, and a plea from help. In this decision he is forced to choose between following his morals and values or protecting himself from the plague and keep himself out of harms way. As Sarai, a stranded hiker who was separated from her husband on a trip, knocks on Mr. Holloran’s door he thinks it was just a branch landing on the porch as he suspects there to be no survivors for miles, yet at his door. Sarai starts yelling and crying out for help claiming “ I haven’t had a scrap for days, not a goddamn scrap, not even bark or grass or a handful of soggy trail mix.” which then assures Holloran this is not a branch at his door but a survivor of the so called “apocalypse”. This is when Holloran has to make the decision to follow his morals and valleys and let her in most likely saving her life and helping his own kind, risking that she may be infected and losing all he has done to survive. The other option would be to not let her and be certain he is safe from the plague and the doom that others have suffered due to the outbreak. Holloran decides to let Sarai in after multiple cries for help as well as shouting out profanity. His reasoning for this is based of two factors, one being that if she did have the plague she would be not be knocking on the door but dead in a puddle of flesh instead. The second factor being that he hope when he opens the door the woman behind it will be a beautiful woman in which he can have companionship with as he is lonely and for sure has lost his sweetheart Danielle. When Holloran opens the door he notices that Sarai is no beauty, not only that but she is rude, uncaring, and disrespectful to Holloran even though he took her in and nursed her back to good health, when she would have just ended up like every other human being on the earth. These are the consequences that Holloran had to sacrifice for following his morals and values. After Holloran and Saria part ways, things turn around for him as he runs into his bank teller Felicia, and they engage in a healthy relationship making him happy once again. And they are eventually saved by a survivor ex machina. Making the decision he did, opening the door for Saria, may have not worked out in his favor during the time being, but it certainly did in the long run. Holloran may have never left that cabin if it wasn’t for Saria not believing what had happened while she was stranded. He may have never driven to the city and met Felicia at the super market, which would have never led them to be saved. So all in all he did in fact make the right decision which led to brighter things. The struggles he went through to find these brighter things only symbolism what will have to be done to re-establish a new life on earth and re-create how things were before the plague.