50 pages • 1 hour read
George R. StewartEarth Abides
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1949A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Year 22”
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Ish is despondent that their former civilization has languished, and the survivors have been unable to rebuild some of its most basic elements. He assesses the Tribe and decides his son Joey is the only one with the intellectual and creative spark to initiate the rebuilding process. He contends that the Tribe must be more proactive about the future and not simply scavenge for survival. They must begin to rebuild the social infrastructure: government, laws, culture, family.
Digression: Over time, a leak in a major aqueduct erodes the ground beneath the support structure. Eventually, it collapses, rupturing the pipes and sending rivers of water cascading down the hills. The same thing happens across countless aqueducts, slowly draining water from the reservoirs.
Ish laments the wasting of resources and the reliance on food and materials from the Old Times. Emma counters that there’s not much difference between raiding a store for supplies and mining or growing them from scratch, but Ish worries about the lack of creativity among the survivors and believes a day of reckoning is coming in which they will have to organize and act.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary
Ish considers the Tribe’s failure to adapt to its new circumstances and wonders if things would change with different people in the group. Should a crisis arise, he as the lone scholar would have to assume leadership. The next morning, he finds everyone’s taps have nearly run dry. He, Ezra, and George drive out to the reservoir to check the water level; only a few shallow puddles remain. They must haul fresh water from the streams and dig holes for outhouses.
Meanwhile, Ish feels uncertain whether Joey is right for future leadership. His intelligence is never in doubt, but he hasn’t demonstrated initiative. After lunch, Ish dozes, dreaming that the governor of California finds them; he feels relief that he doesn’t have to bear all the responsibility for the group. He wakes, feeling despondent. That night, he calls a meeting during which the Tribe discusses the water shortage. Irritated by the group’s complacency, Ish complains that they have not done enough to ensure long-term survival. The others are not swayed until Ezra seconds Ish’s suggestion of exploring further to find other communities. They begin to vigorously debate the question, and in the end, Richard and Robert, the two eldest unmarried boys are chosen to go. All the cars are in disrepair (they’ve been using dog-drawn carriages), but they resolve to get one running. Ish suggests the best route east is through the southwest. Although Emma is skeptical of reaching out to other communities, Ish counters that it’s the only way to survive.
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Ish marvels at the endurance of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges, imagining a return to the glory days of civilization. Later that morning, the group works on the outhouse and looks for a suitable car to repair.
Digression: Early human civilization was marked by a comingling of work and play. As civilization grows, the line between work and play becomes more rigid: “And always work became more laborious and odious, and play grew more artificial and febrile” (189).
Ish and his sons locate an old Jeep dealership, and, after some tinkering, they get one running. After lunch, Ish takes Joey to the library to stimulate his intellectual curiosity but also worries that his son’s physical and social development are lagging behind. They drive home, suffering only one flat tire in the process. Ish finds the other children engaged in “bull-dodging” at a nearby park, a “dangerous” activity but permitted as an energy release.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
Ish coaches Richard and Robert on the best routes, but when Robert asks what Arizona is, Ish realizes that old definitions and borders no longer have meaning. After a few days, the boys depart, and the rest of the group digs a well for fresh water. During the evenings, Ish tries to introduce musical “sophistication” to the group (classical, jazz), but they don’t seem interested. Anxiety plagues his sleep as he imagines the dangers Richard and Robert might face on the road.
Part 2, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Part 2 of the novel shows the group 22 years in the future. Ish is still committed to saving at least the values of the old technological civilization, with its future-oriented planning, its need for creating the new, and its ethos of mastery over nature. However, others in the group—including Emma—are not of the same mind. In these chapters, Ish feels that the members of the Tribe are being complacent because they have an abundance of food and roofs over their heads; the Tribe seems content to sit back and live out their lives, lacking initiative and drive. This is significant because a common trope of post-apocalyptic fiction is the struggle for leadership and power. Here, however, the lack of such a struggle indicates that the Tribe members are losing the characteristics of civilization that Ish is trying to preserve. (Theme: Civilization Versus Atavism.)
If trouble arises—a broken aqueduct, for example—they deal with it reactively rather than proactively, which annoys Ish, who advocates for education and exploration. Whenever he suggests the group adopts similar thinking, they give him a pat on the head and go about their business. Unless confronted with an immediate problem—like a cougar attack—the group assumes that all is well or will be well.
Contributing to the theme of The Ambivalence of Power/Mastery, ideas about leadership are also at play in the novel. Ish sees himself as the natural leader of the group, and he is concerned about their future leadership once he is gone. Ish has been trained as a scientist. That is to say, in the context of the 1950s, Ish’s education and background shaped him to be a leader in a technological society. The idea that scientifically trained technocrats were needed to govern the complex technological society and the expanded government that arose before and during and after the Second World War gained currency in the era in which the novel was published. A classic critique of this worldview was Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society, published in France in 1954 but not translated into English until 1964. Ish, prepared to be a modern and scientifically trained leader, must learn how to adapt to the new circumstances.
An aspect of the narrative that bears mentioning is its casual sexism, which may be due partly to the cultural moment during which it was written. The women rarely take part in important discussions. They are relegated mostly to household chores while the “menfolk” handle the manual labor and executive decisions. During the bull-dodging scene, the boys have the first go, tiring the bull out before it was “fit for a girl to take over” (201). While Ish repeatedly acknowledges that Emma is emotionally stronger than him and that she often wins the arguments, the narrative as a whole defaults to the gender stereotypes of the time: men in the forefront and women in the background.
