Clark Thompson's Perspective

Through Clark Thompson’s personal opinions, Mandel demonstrates how one’s perspective is significant to how they view the world around them. Before the collapse, Clark had worked for a company that targets certain employees and tries to improve their work performance. In one of his assessments, he interviewed the coworkers of a seemingly depressed manage. After a deep conversation, Clark comes to the realization that “he had been sleepwalking, moving half-asleep through the motions of his life,” (Mandel 164). Before the end of civilization, Clark had spent so much of his life working towards his career with a single mindset. But when he is confronted with another person’s perspective, Clark begins to see his life in a different way. And through this new view, Clark sees how his career is not fulfilling, and that he goes through life “sleepwalking”. A similar event occurs again, however this time, 19 years after the collapse. Now in his old age, Clark encounters a couple who have …show more content…
In the new world, this represents how many people one has killed. By this point, Clark had lived a long life, and claims that “there was a part of him that never stopped exclaiming at the absurd standards of the new world” (Mandel 279). In response to the Georgia Flue, the world had changed significantly, which forced the remaining people to change perspective on the world around them. For Clark, this change in perspective is difficult because the new world view that many people hold comes into conflict with Clark’s many years living in a civilized world. Whether it is forced or discerned by choice, a change in perspective has clearly changed Clark’s view on the world around him, and in turn influences his personal opinions on the world drastically. However, Clark Thompson is not the only character that undergoes this change.
Another character to be affected by their changed perspective would be the Prophet of St. Deborah by