Post #6 (11-15)

Topic E

Chapters 11 through 15 really seem to be a transitional phase between different conflicts. In the first several chapters the conflict was between man, nature, and machine with a near to even division of power on all sides. At this point we really see nature take a back seat to the unspoken war occurring as man is driven out ahead of machine. The begining of chapter 11 even starts with the statement that "The houses were left vacant on the land.....only the tractor sheds...were alive...." Clear that man has lost on this front and must move on, fleeing the invasive machines and what has become an almost hidden but no less menacing force of nature. Often times it is pointed out that it is dry, forcing people to stop for water, in this way nature drives a thin blade repeatedly into the bodies of man whist he flees opting rather than to overwhelm man as the machines had done, instead to kill him by a thousand cuts. Man against man comes into play here as a new adversary. The views of the waitress in chapter 15 show a disdain for those fleeing the calamities they faced and fell to. Her remarks show also an unwillingness to aid unless pressured into it, this conflict is, like nature passive, but just as deadly.