Character Clues

Character Analysis

Props

You can learn a lot about a person by the junk they haul around on their backs when the world ends. Ben tells us that "the pockets of the dead are filled to the brim with the strangest things only the owners could understand the value for" (45.27). One of Cassie's sentimental items is her little collection of books, which we watch her pare down before a big trip.

Cassie has four books, but there's only room for two. Two of her choices are The Grapes of Wrath and a book of poems by Sylvia Plath—very "grown-up" titles that represent the hardships of adult life. (Seriously, we defy you to think of two books that are more depressing.)

The other two are classic children's books, Huckleberry Finn and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. She chooses the kid's books, which tells us that she wants to cling to her former innocence. Yeah, good luck with that.

Other characters' props include Sammy's bear and Ben's necklace. (See the Symbols section to learn more.)

Family Life

Family is huge to both Cassie and Ben, who care about their siblings more than themselves. Cassie spends the better part of the novel planning the rescue of her baby brother, Sammy. (Separately, Ben, who's formed a special relationship with Sammy, is planning a rescue mission of his own.)

Cassie's more hopeful than Ben about the future, and that's because she believes that Sammy is alive. Ben, on the other hand, knows his little sister is dead; the scene of her murder haunts him.

While Yancey uses family life to characterize Cassie and Ben, it's also worth noting that family life can't tell you everything about a person. Feeling suspicious of Evan, Cassie paws through his family's photo albums while he's out hunting:

There's baby Evan in the hospital wearing the striped newborn hat. […] And the rest of his family […] I put the albums away. My paranoia is fading. (54.13—16)

The pictures don't tell the story of his secret life as an alien, which even his family didn't know.

Actions

Before his death, Cassie's dad gives her a piece of advice that you might find useful, Shmoopers:

"Do you know how to tell who the enemy is in wartime, Cassie? The guy who's shooting at you—that's how you tell." (16.35)

Conveniently enough, that's also a good way for readers to tell which characters are the worst of the worst. At Camp Haven, Vosch is posing as a human and a good guy. The thing is, we saw him murder Cassie's dad in cold blood earlier in the book. Are we going to trust what he says? Or what we saw?

Still, it's not a hard and fast rule. Evan shot Cassie before he saved her life and helped her cause. And Vosch himself trained a whole army of child soldiers who are shooting humans under false pretenses.

So let's revise Cassie's dad's advice to say it's best to take all of a person's actions into account—not just the shooting part. It may not have the same ring to it, but hey, whatever works.