The Scarlet Plague

Content Warning: This section discusses a pandemic and death. The source text includes ableist and racist language, which this guide reproduces only in quotations. 

“The way led along upon what had once been the embankment of a railroad. But no train had run upon it for many years.”

London sets the scene in the opening passages of the book. The description of the setting immediately introduces a question with its suggestion that the railroad—a symbol of modern technology—is not in operation. London gradually reveals the reasons for this: The story takes place in a future when technology has broken down and humanity has returned to a hunter-gatherer condition. In the meantime, the passage works to create suspense.

“Rabbit is good, very good […] but when it comes to a toothsome delicacy I prefer crab.”

Smith says this to Edwin after the latter catches a rabbit to eat later. Edwin replies by seizing upon Smith’s vocabulary (“toothsome delicacy”) as strange and old-fashioned. Thus, London introduces two recurrent motifs: language and food as indicators of societal change.

“The boys were true savages, possessing only the cruel humor of the savage.”

After the grandchildren play a cruel practical joke on Smith by feeding him mussels that are scalding hot, London’s omniscient narrator issues this pronouncement. The statement definitively establishes the children’s nature and links it to their “savagery”—i.e., their unfamiliarity with modern, industrialized civilization. It also cements the conflict between them and their grandfather, toward whom they are strongly disrespectful.