OF DAYS

Symposium

END

Plot Summary

• End of Days by Walters showcases two great characters as they independently brace themselves for the end of the world.

• 28 years after a satellite transmits a message that an asteroid is coming to destroy Earth, only professors and scientists can find a solution.

• As soon as the rest of the world finds out, people become violent, battling for supplies and resources to sustain their existence.

• Professor Sheppard is a main character who works for a secret space program who hopes to find a way to stop the asteroid.

• When there is only one year left, Billy Phillips, a teenager from New York is known as a leader of a pack of kids.

• As the timeline counts down to years, then months , than days, Billy and Sheppard finally meet and they must make many life changing decisions that not only control their fate but the fate of civilization.

Thesis

“ The main individuals of Life As We Knew It by Pfeffer and End of Days by Walters have the will to survive traumatic events and discover a true side to

themselves by experiencing a once and lifetime phenomenon.”

Themes

Role of Religion - The theme of religion demonstrates the impacts religion can bestow on a

society. In this novel, people are caught between an argument made by religious fanatics that the

this future destruction is the wrath of god and the end of the world. This splits the whole world

into two sections, trying to avoid the destruction by coming up with a solution or let people suffer

the wrath of god. In this story the religious people are considered dangerous because they preform

consistent violent demonstrations. The religious people who believe in this prophecy are

considered the anti-hero.

Chaos and Order - When the rest of the world finds out that the end is coming it launches into

mayhem. The government has fallen, stock markets crash and public violence is occurring

repeatedly. The time period of a few years has brought the world into a new era of darkness. This

connects to another theme of darkness and light. In this case, order no longer exists and the

people have reached a dehumanized state. This idea of no order shows the reader what it would be

like without a leader.

Courage to Take the Lead - The protagonist Billy Phillips is the base of this theme. After the

world turned to chaos, he launched his own colony of kids and led them to survive. Once he was

in a new facility, he learns so much about himself and the gifts he failed to see the first time. Billy

had to rise above and take courage to lead the last humans on Earth into space and one day return

to Earth, hoping he can lead them back to a thriving population.

Connections from Theme to World

• The asteroid planning to hit the Earth in the novel is said to be so extremely gigantic that the Earth

would receive great impacts and the population of everything would be diminished. A historical

reference that was made was to the extinction of the dinosaurs. This was one of the ways to explain to

rest of global population how devastating the results were going to be. They say that the asteroid that

wiped out the dinosaurs was 10 km wide, the asteroid in this novel was 200 km wide.

• A section of the novel reminds me of the Cold War. In the story, the solution to destroy the asteroid was

to launch 30 rockets with 1500 nuclear devices each. Citizens and scientists were concerned that they

would not launch correctly and they would end up blowing up a part of the Earth’s surface. This

connects to the Cold War because that’s when countries had nuclear weapons and people were worried

they would be a target. The two points that connect is the worry and relying on nuclear mechanisms.

End of Days vs

Life as we Knew it

• Contrasting the format of the two sources and seeing how both styles help better understand

the theme. End of days is written out as a timeline, focusing on different scenarios told from

multiple viewpoints. The author of Life as we Knew it writes her novel by only one viewpoint

and is told in a format of diary entries.

• Recognizing the protagonists in the novels and how their roles influence their stories. In End of

Days, there is no clear protagonist and an argument could be made. In one story there is a stand

out character who is no doubt the protagonist.

• Each protagonist develops a moral throughout the story. This moral in all sources help better

understand the theme. Both characters have gone through a natural disaster that has made them

discover aspects to themselves that they failed to see the first time.

Themes are Relevant to Us Now!

• Religion in the world today influences what we believe in. People choose

different types of religion based on their point of view. In the story, religion

defined whether you wanted to live or die. You have a choice whether you want

to believe in a certain entity or not.

• The idea of chaos vs order is heavily found in our society. My book has shown

me that chaos breakdown the world. Without order or government, there is no

rules or leaders that can guide a population. Right now we live in a civilized

society where order is enforced. It seems that chaos will lead to dysfunction and

mayhem when rules are not considered.

THE END