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Isolation And Love Triangles In After The Plague And Termination Dust

Good Essays

Isolation and Love Triangles The short stories “After the Plague” and “Termination Dust” by T.C. Boyle share similar plot themes, but each story represents it in a different way. Each story is told in first person by the main male character: Jed being the main character in “After the Plague” and Ned in “Termination Dust”; Both have one thing in common, loneliness. Jed is alone after the plague killed off most of the population and Ned lives in a remote area in Alaska where female companionship is certainly lacking. Each story has its own unique story line that is told with an under lying humor leaving the reader intrigued yet on edge. The two stories are connected by their isolated setting and how the setting deeply affects the dynamics and intensity of the love triangles in the story. Each story has a similar setting that causes the main characters to be more isolated from the world. In “After the Plague,” Jed is in California after disaster struck, leaving few people left in the world. His story starts off in a remote setting in the mountains as he listens to the radio of the flu wrecking havoc around him. To help paint the picture of this new isolated world Boyle writes, “There wasn’t even any looting of the supermarkets—there was no need. There was more than enough for everybody who ever was or would be” (“After” 347). Boyle also describes that the highways are free of traffic but cluttered with cars that are free for the taking, and lawns left unattended

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