Talk:Z for Zachariah

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decision to leave is based largely on a belief in dreams, also clearly described (226-28), claiming falsely that Ann is only “hoping there are humans somewhere else, maybe even children to teach.”
 * 1) You wrote incorrectly that Faro’s death was accidental although Ann states her decision to kill the dog and speaks explicitly of “setting the trap for Faro” (237). To view the issue as "unclear" ignores stated facts.
 * 2) In addition, your description of Ann doubling back on the other side of the stream was incorrect, as the text makes clear (233).

These are not matters of opinion. Whatever your interpretation of Ann, these facts remain the same and should probably raise some concerns about her reasoning and behavior. In any case, editors should present the facts in the summary as accurately as possible and put interpretations in separate sections where they are clearly opinions. All readers should be able to make their own judgments based on the facts.

New revisions to improve objectivity & remove bias
Regarding my revisions: Z for Zachariah is a limited first person narrative in journal form. This means that it is a fictional account of the day-by-day record of one person's experiences, thoughts and actions, and her moral dilemmas and changing judgements on them. There is no omniscient narrator in Z for Zachariah to tell We the Readers whether and when she is right or wrong in those judgements (and in the book these judgements sometimes have no easy answers, as is often the case with moral judgements). A "plot summary" is a brief recounting of the text of a novel. So therefore, Seoulseeker, inserting your opinions on whether the narrator is right or wrong into your summary (by saying "Ann realizes..." when you think she is right and "Ann imagines..." when you think she's wrong and deluded) is writing your opinion into the summary when your opinion is NOT written in the novel text and therefore does not belong in the summary. Writing your justifications of your opinion about Ann being right or wrong ALSO is not written in the novel text and also does not belong in the summary. Putting it in also has the additional unhappy effect of making the plot summary a lot longer than it needs to be. Ann may or may not be unreliable as a narrator, but you telling us she IS wrong in the plot summary is as out of place as saying during the plot summary of The Turn of the Screw that the governess IS obviously insane and hallucinating when she sees the ghosts, when the actual novel text does not say definitively whether she is or not. You may be right or you may be wrong, but it is not our place to give our judgements in the plot summary when those judgements are not clearly spelled out in the text. In the plot summary we're supposed to summarize the plot - period.

I made my newest revisions mainly for this reason, though also I did make some changes for clarification. I'll detail them:

First line of the plot summary: I reverted a few words of explanation about the death of Ann's family and the valley's mysterious sparing, since I think it's important to clarify briefly to non-readers just WHY a teenage girl is alone on a farm in a valley after a nuclear war.

"Nevertheless, desperately afraid of being alone forever, Ann hopes Loomis will live even though he could be a murderer; so she nurses him through his illness and keeps her doubts secret. ..." In the novel, Ann prays for Loomis' survival and does not say it is specifically because she will be alone forever if he dies. Also, "keeping her doubts secret" is a lot vaguer than simply saying that Ann does not tell Loomis that he talked to her about killing Edward.

"The first time he speaks again, saying her companionship saved him, she restrains an urge to embrace and expresses no feeling for him." Inaccurate. The first time he speaks, he says she played the piano.

As Loomis slowly recovers his strength, Ann's original fear of being controlled returns and increases... When he later begins making practical plans and one time scolds her for not planting corn, she fears he is becoming possessive and controlling;[16] and his plan to start a colony together makes her uneasy now despite her similar hopes earlier.[17] Imagining his behavior shows more disturbing signs, by June 23 Ann thinks of Loomis as a murderer and fears his horrible experiences have damaged his mind.[18]

You omit other incidents that Ann reports as a cause of her unease, especially the one where he grabs her hand, pulls her off balance and makes her fall despite her plea that he let her go. This is LITERALLY Loomis physically trying to control Ann. Why omit it and say that Ann is "imagining" that his behavior is disturbing? I added it as well as other incidents Ann details as part of her unease with Loomis. Let the reader decide whether Ann is "imagining" something or not.

"Ann thinks her fears are validated when, early on June 28, she awakes in the dark to hear Loomis in her doorway. Fearing he heard her wake, she pretends to be asleep in the hope he will leave, not realizing that her silence might seem a tacit invitation." Really? Since when is a girl lying silently in her own bedroom in the nighttime considered a tacit invitation to sex? No such invitation is extended by Ann in the text, so it has no place in the summary. And Loomis rambling about starting a colony and Ann remaining silent upon hearing it does not count as either an invitation or an assent. Loomis did not ask for one, didn't get one, and therefore has entered her bedroom and approached her bed without one.

"But when Loomis tries to lie on top of her, she breaks free and flees to the cave, where she hides in terror for a few days, watching constantly and scared to sleep." You omit the part where Loomis puts his hand hard on Ann's shoulder (to pin her, she thinks). You omit the part where Ann tries to flee, and Loomis grabs her and pulls her back, tearing her shirt, and she has to strike backwards with her elbow to force him to let her go so she can escape. Why do you omit these things? The minute Ann tries to flee, Loomis knows she does not want to have sex with him, and that he has no "tacit" consent from her to have it. Yet he physically pulls her back, trying force her to stay and take control of her body away regardless of what she wants or doesn't want. This casts an important light on Loomis' character. I added those details in, since you may have forgotten them and you seem very worried that Loomis might be misjudged on the strength of this scene.

"On the morning of July 1, Ann speaks with Loomis from a safe distance and proposes a "compromise" of sharing the valley and farm work but living separate lives.[19] She is amazed by his friendly manner, "as if nothing had happened."[20] Saying he has no choice but to accept her proposal, Loomis hopes she will reconsider and “act more like an adult";[21] but Ann assures him she will not change her mind. Though this arrangement is inconvenient and Ann worries about surviving winter, she assumes there’s no alternative and now wishes Loomis had never come.[22]

I added the rest of the quotes, which make it clear that while Loomis may have started the conversation on a "friendly" note, he didn't end on one. And Ann does not "assume there's no alternative"; there's a choice (stay with Loomis or not) and she makes it.

"About 10 days later, it seems Loomis begins trying to force Ann's return by controlling the tractor and the limited store supplies that she relies on."

Inaccurate. It's not that it "seems" that Loomis is trying to force Ann's return; Loomis clearly TELLS her that that's exactly what he's doing. When she asks for the tractor key, he refuses and says that if she persists in her determination to stay away, there are things she will have to do without. I added that in. Also, you edited out my explanation of what Loomis specifically did to keep Ann from getting food (padlock the store). Why?

"Ann realizes she may have provoked him by denying any companionship, reasoning, "There are people who cannot stand being alone; perhaps he was acting from despair." Saying that she "realizes" she may have "provoked" Loomis by depriving him of companionship means that you think it's the truth, when we don't KNOW it's the truth. It could also be that his desire to control extended to wanting to control Ann too. We don't read Loomis' mind, so we don't know which it is. Changed to a more neutral wording.

"She decides it is sensible to offer to talk sometimes from a safe distance; but when she approaches the house, Loomis shockingly shoots at her from a window." You deliberately edited out the part where Loomis SHOOTS HER IN THE LEG. Why is that? This also casts an important light on Loomis' character. There is no hospital and no antibiotics or vaccines; if Ann's wound is seriously infected, she could die of septicemia or tetanus. Loomis was willing to risk that to force Ann to come back to him. What justification do you have for editing this out?

"Seeming frightened and confused, he begs her not to leave him alone, saying, “It’s wrong.”[31] But Ann merely blames him because he never thanked her for nursing him..."

Inaccurate. Ann does not "merely" blame him because he never thanked her for nursing him. She first tells him that if she finds other people, she will tell them to come for him.

Now, I understand you're upset that many readers both here on this Talk thread and elsewhere on the internet do not share your opinion regarding Ann as an unreliable narrator and a selfish, disgusting, presumptuous, paranoid, etc., character. You feel that there is a "controversy" about this. You have your reasons. But as far as I understand Wikipedia policy, nothing belongs in a Wikipedia article that is not published in reliable sources. Arguments on the internet are ephemeral, and do not count as reliable sources, and do not belong in the article. Nor are arguments here on the Wikipedia Talk page worthy of inclusion in the article.

If there IS a controversy IN PUBLISHED SOURCES about whether Ann is not a reliable narrator, by all means include it - in a section entitled "Literary criticism", not in the plot summary. That 1975 Publisher's Weekly review you mentioned IS a perfectly acceptable inclusion in such a section. If you want to write about an argument among published reviews and analyses about whether or not Ann is a despicable character, do so - but you must cite the articles that go against your view as well as the ones that agree with you.

And if you want to include all your opinions and reasonings about why you think Ann is unreliable, paranoid, selfish, etc., character, and there is NO published source detailing such opinions and reasonings, then your opinion and reasoning regarding Ann count as Original Research and do not belong on Wikipedia - no matter how convincing they are to you and how strongly you feel about them. Write an essay about it and publish it in The Horn Book or Publisher's Weekly or some other reliable source and THEN it will be proper to include it in Wikipedia. Not before.

I have other edits that would streamline the article, but I think I've Talked way too much today already. mambru19

Views on Z for Zachariah (posted earlier elsewhere)
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Yes, I am very interested in Z for Zachariah (as you also obviously are)as I've loved the book since I was a teenager. But I think discussion about what I think about the Wiki article belongs on the Talk page for that article, where other potential editors may agree or disagree as they see fit. I will address your points there." ...in response to your query on my Talk page, but after revising the article and updating the Talk page there, I realize I didn't address your points here fully. So, here goes.

"For instance, when she first thinks he is becoming possessive and controlling, the facts don't actually support this view at all. So it is only objective to say that she imagines or thinks so."

That's a question of opinion. You said in the article Talk page that Ann "imagines" that Loomis does disturbing things. However, it's a FACT that Ann is disturbed by his actions. The question is whether Ann has sufficient grounds for her unease. He does not ask her, suggest to her or persuade her of things. He gives her orders and criticizes and belittles her wishes and choices. All this is usually grounds for mere annoyance, but when you're facing the idea that this is the ONLY person you're going to have to spend the rest of your life nonstop alone with, IMO that's grounds for some unease. When you add in the FACT that he LITERALLY tries to physically control her by grabbing her hand and refusing to let go till she says what he wants to hear, pulling her off balance and rebuking her when she accidentally hits him when she falls - then yes, I DO think there ARE some facts that support the view that he is controlling. You may think they are insufficient - but that's your opinion, and as an opinion it's not any more objective than my opinion that they are.

"Most crucially, perhaps, when he goes to her room one night, there is no actual evidence he tries to rape her or even that he "pins her to the bed." A key point here is that she guesses he hears her breathing change, but then she assumes he thinks she's asleep because she hopes he will leave. It is typical of Ann to believe what she wishes to be true, deluding herself. In this case, she wants to believe he thinks she's asleep because she hopes he will then leave (apparently assuming he is a decent man who would not enter her room without permission). Blinded by her fear and wishful thinking, she continues to assume he thinks her asleep even as he enters the room, not considering that he likely knows she's awake. So fear leads her to make the wrong conclusion about his character and motives.

"Logically, there are 2 possibilities here: (1) he thinks she's asleep and plans to rape her (which is monstrous and seems completely inconsistent with his character); or (2) he knows she's awake and assumes her silence gives tacit permission to enter (which can be consistent with his character and allows him to make an understandable mistake by simply, like Ann, believing what he wishes to believe)."

Sorry, no, that's just wrong. Loomis had no way of knowing for sure if she was awake or asleep. If he honestly thought she would be okay with him coming into her room and having sex with her because she was silent when he talked about a colony, it behooved him as a minimally decent human being to verify that she IS in fact awake and willing by SPEAKING to her, even if it is only to say, "Hi, can we have the sex I hinted at when I mentioned the colony?" Walking in silently and pressing down hard on her shoulder before jumping on top of her gives a lot more credibility to possibility 1.

Besides, where do you get the idea that a rape is "monstrous and seems completely inconsistent with his character"? We don't get to know his character that well, ever. He hides his killing of Edward and the events leading up to it. When Ann attempts to get to know him by asking him about his childhood, his past and his relationships, he refuses to give any but the most minimal answers, and then tries to physically intimidate her into speaking more personally to him than he was willing to speak to her. We know very little about his character, and in the few facts that we do know there are as many bad signs as good ones. So saying it's "incompatible" with his character to rape is, again, only your opinion

But the clearest "evidence that he tries to rape her" is what he did when he pressed down hard on her shoulder and she tried to flee. By doing so, she showed clearly that she did NOT want to have sex with him. As I said in the article Talk page, he then pulled her back (scratching her while doing so, IIRC) while she was struggling to get away, tearing her clothes. He was physically trying to force her to do what she clearly does not want to do. That covers the "by force and without her consent" part of attempted rape neatly, thus making Possibility 1 pretty much a certainty, IMO... so therefore he IMO is not the nice honest frank non-rapist fellow you judge him as.

"A big problem with Ann throughout the story is that she communicates very poorly, keeping her thoughts and feelings secret from Loomis. Loomis has the same problem sometimes, but it's to a lesser degree because he at least tries sometimes to get close to Ann and talks frankly about his expectations for their relationship."

Shockingly, I disagree. Ann, it's true, does not communicate her thoughts very well - but she is barely sixteen and Loomis is thirty. She TRIES to talk to him about his life and about his romantic past - which was the perfect opening for him to gain her confidence by talking to her and revealing himself a little so that he could bring the conversation to his expectations for their relationship. Instead he grabs her hand and tries to intimidate her into revealing more about herself instead. He wants to control and limit even his confidences to her. That's not frank or honest. And I don't see that Loomis' talk about the "colony" that he pictures the valley as is a particularly frank and honest way to reveal his expectations for their relationship. He was talking about the colony in the context of preserving seed stocks for beets and wheat, for breeding the cattle. If Ann's a part of that, he seems to rate her at about the level of importance of the breeding cow. He certainly never discusses with her what an actual human relationship would be like between them, let alone ask her wishes and preferences about it. Yes, that's true, and he should. So should Ann. It doesn't make him a rapist, though, or a controlling and possessive person; he simply lacks some social skills and thinks about things in more scientific and rational ways. Ann has shortcomings also. He just ignores the idea that she might actually HAVE preferences at all as he goes to her bedroom without her leave.

You say Loomis 'had no choice' but to act the way he did after the attempted rape. I say that he could have apologized to Ann, acknowledged that he had frightened her, had trespassed her boundaries, had done wrong, and was willing to make amends, say, by giving up his weapons to her and whatever other measures she might decide on that might eventually restore her trust. Loomis puts all these possibilities aside by refusing to acknowledge that he's done anything wrong. ANN's the one who's making a fuss about his attack on her - she should just get over it and come back for more.

The most sinister characteristics of Loomis are seen AFTER the attempted rape, IMO. You have said that Loomis acted to force Ann to return out of pure concern that she would starve or freeze to death in winter. I don't think the facts support that information. Loomis initially thought she had fled to live at the store - where there is no danger that she will either starve or freeze to death, and in fact could live quite comfortably. This was not satisfactory to Loomis - so he put the store with its food and warmth out of her reach. He INCREASED the risk that she would starve or freeze to death, instead of living comfortably in the store, because the risk of starving or freezing to death might force her to return under his control, and he's willing to risk that she might actually in his attempt to recapture her.

He shoots her in the leg, risking death by septicemia or tetanus for her, all so that he can get her back under his complete control. That's IMO kind of sociopathic.

The worst thing he does is at the end of the book, when he straight up intends to murder Ann because she's DARING to steal his suit. He wants to kill her, even though (having gotten possession of Ann's farm) he no longer needs it to survive, so killing her for it is no longer a dubious act of defense but a straight up vengeful murder - because she had DARED steal what was his. That's his lowest point as a character, and Ann offers him the only redemption he can get by reminding him of a previous crime to dissuade him from this one. He starts rising to a character eventually redeemable by helping Ann leave toward other life that he's seen out there, recognizing that the life out there may be better than the life he would force her to lead in the valley with him.

Sorry, Ambien makes me poetic-like.

Trying to force Ann's return
I wrote that it "seems" Loomis is trying to force Ann's return because Ann herself is unsure about his motives, apparently not wanting to believe it's true. She thinks he might just be concerned about controlling and rationing supplies with a practical, "long-term-term view" (217). She also admits he might be right to do so: "And he did not trust me to do that (perhaps rightly)" (217). In fact, she is depending on limited store supplies to live in the cave, ignoring the reality that she won't be able to continue hiding this way when they run out. She admits deluding herself the same way before Loomis arrived and showed her how to get gas for the tractor: "I could face a fact that I had previously tried to keep out of my mind, it being too depressing to dwell on: the store was an illusion" (94). When Loomis controls the store, he forces her to face that reality again sooner.

Why edit out that he padlocked the store? I think it is enough to say he takes control of the tractor and store supplies she relies on--clearly implying that he stops her from using them. There are many details that can be added for various reasons, but this one seems unnecessary. No, the wording can't mean that he is trying to control Ann, as I said, "trying to force Ann's return by controlling the tractor and the limited store supplies." It's adequately clear.

Editing of shooting her in the leg?
That was edited for brevity, a faster-paced narrative, and to avoid repetition. It already says later that she nurses a bullet-grazed ankle. Why say twice that he shot her in the leg? I think the really shocking thing is that he shoots at her at all. But I just realized that what's missing is Ann's deduction that he was apparently trying to wound and catch her, not kill her.

In the name of brevity
If you're really interested in making the article shorter and faster paced, why did you (for example) change my "Having the companion she often wished for, Ann imagines eventually marrying Loomis; but she decides not to speak of this until he is better," to "Having the companion she often wished for, Ann quickly imagines a church wedding the following spring. But she decides it is too soon to get engaged, since they just met, he might not like her, and he is sick."...which is longer and does not convey any vital plot information that I omitted in my sentence? Why repeatedly insert exact dates when only the general sequence and duration of events are important to a summary? Why write about the vegetable patch Ann dug up before going into hiding? Why explain who Faro the dog used to belong to when Ann's cousin is dead and is not a character in the story? And there are many other places that can be trimmed without omitting important plot points. I plan to do so in a separate edit.