Dread Nation

“But all of that was dashed to hell two days after I was born, when the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.”

Jane’s early life was already complicated. As the Black child of a white woman who seemingly committed an act of adultery, Jane was marked as different the moment she was born. She was almost killed by a midwife, and days later, the world became an apocalyptic nightmare. Life for Jane has always been dangerous, and the early days of her time on earth set the tone for the danger that will follow her throughout the novel. This final line at the end of the Prologue also alerts the reader that something has gone very wrong in this version of American history.

“An Attendant’s job is simple: keep her charge from being killed by the dead, and her virtue from being compromised by potential suitors.”

Jane’s description of the Attendant’s role is telling in this passage. She implies that there are two dangers young women must be protected from: shamblers, and aggressive men. Jane is of the opinion that aggressive men like her father, the mayor, the sheriff, and the preacher are more dangerous than shamblers, and based on her comment here, she is not the only one who has this belief.

“Baltimore County is the safest in all the country. They say so in the newspaper, and you know the paper would never lie.”

This comment in Jane’s letter to her mother seems to be a tongue-in-cheek remark about the bias in the newspaper. Jane doesn’t seem to believe her own words, and less than two months after attending a lecture in which the mayor of Baltimore stressed the safety of the city, Baltimore falls to the