Baby Madeline

Madeline, Bea’s stillborn baby, is a symbol of fatality. She represents the novel’s reality: humankind is doomed as children cannot survive in the City where no doctors specialize in new life. Even in the Wilderness, new life is fated to die, as evidenced by Madeline being born dead.

Dust

It is a vast landscape, parts of which are uncharted on the maps the Community is given by the Rangers. The named places in the Wilderness that they encounter are: Middle Post, the Valley, the Caldera, the Poisoned River, and the Lower Post. The Wilderness state is dissolved at the end of the novel, being transformed into an inhabited area that will, presumably, be consumed by the City sprawl in the future.

The Map

The Map guides the Community's movements around the Wilderness. However, the Map symbolizes the tension within the group concerning whether...