fever outbreak. Charlie is a stranger who arrives from Los Angeles after two of the "boys" (the second generation) make a scouting expedition in a refurbished Jeep to see what is left of America. Immediately upon his arrival Ish and Ezra become suspicious about Charlie and the type of person he might be. Their suspicions are confirmed a day later when Charlie sets his eye on Evie. He also reveals to Ezra after drinking heavily that he has had many of "Cupid's" diseases. Ish confronts Charlie about Evie, Charlie is disrespectful and challenges Ish's authority as leader. It is revealed that Charlie carries a concealed pistol and his behavior reveals himself as someone who was probably a violent criminal before the epidemic. As a result, Ish, Em, Ezra and George debate what to do about Charlie for the safety of the community, exile or execution. Charlie is the carrier of the typhoid epidemic that infects the community. Jack is Ish's great-grandson. He's a young man who hunts with arrows he makes himself. Jack is confident, intelligent and a potential leader, and Ish sees something of Joey in him; although he has beliefs which to Ish seem superstitious and naive. Like others of his generation, Jack believes Ish's old hammer is something very important for the Tribe. He risks his life by going into a burning house to retrieve the hammer. A little later, as Ish is dying, the young men want to know who the hammer will now belong to, and Ish chooses Jack. Major themes Biological controls on population On the title page Stewart immediately starts with the theme, quoting Ecclesiastes 1:4 — "Men go and come, but earth abides." For the first half of Earth Abides, George R. Stewart concentrates on a major theme for the book, that humans have no privileged place in nature and are not immune to nature's built-in population controls. The main character, a geographer, states it plainly, "When anything gets too numerous it's likely to get hit by some plague". On the first page Stewart tells readers how contagion could bring the end very quickly for mankind: Within a few pages he makes it clear that basic biology applies to humans too: Effects of smaller population Reviewer Noel Perrin has pointed out that George R. Stewart had written two books before this, in which the main character was not a person, but "a