What is America?

This is the question that the characters in Stephen King’s The Stand try to answer through their establishment of the Free Zone. In the novel [spoiler alert!], society is decimated by a superflu which kills over 99% of Americans. In the aftermath, those who are immune coalesce around two semi-divine figures: Randall Flagg, who establishes himself as an autocratic dictator in Las Vegas, and Mother Abigail, who welcomes survivors into the Free Zone of Boulder, Colorado.

Unlike Flagg—who is set up as the novel’s villain—Abigail takes a more laissez-faire approach to her governance. She does not bark orders, nor does she force anyone to stay; actually, she seems to not rule at all. Instead, the main characters of the novel form the Boulder Free Zone Committee, a mostly democratic, elected board who serve as representatives for the denizens of the Free Zone. One of their first steps is to re-ratify the constitution. This is an entirely symbolic act—there is no Senate, no Electoral College, no President, no remnant of the previous America. In fact, Larry, Stu, Frannie, and the others on the committee set up the first elections such that it is near impossible that they lose.

I want to focus on a turning point in the novel—the sending of the Judge, Dayna, and Tom to spy out Las Vegas and find out what Flagg has planned. Those on the Boulder Free Zone Committee suspect that Flagg will strike over the next few months and attempt to destroy the Free Zone, and they want to figure out his plans. They know this is likely a suicide mission; the journey itself is hard enough, and each spy must make it alone and without food or the infrastructure that makes travel so easy in the modern day. Even if they arrive, there is no guarantee that Flagg and his henchmen will let them return; they are known to crucify those who disagree with them. He may welcome them in as traitors of Mother Abigail, but there is little chance of him letting them come back—and he, unlike Mother Abigail, has set up measures to ensure people do not leave. Larry Underwood, one of the book’s main characters, estimates the odds of them getting back at “one in ten” and their “chances of getting back with information we can actually base decisions on are one in twenty.”

The people they choose to send make the outcome seem even bleaker. They send the Judge, a wizened man of seventy, and Tom Cullen, a mentally handicapped young man who they must hypnotize in order to send. Not only that, but for security reasons, the spies not only must go separately but are unaware of each other’s identity.

This is begging to be compared to the narrative of the spies in Numbers 13. Though the spies in the bible are technically sent north, the Israelites are traveling west towards Israel, the Promised Land, the same direction that our novel’s spies are sent in. When Tom, under a state of hypnosis, estimates how long he will be gone on the mission, his estimate of six weeks, or 42 days, is awfully close to the biblical 40 days.

The differences, though, make this comparison non-trivial. The idea to send spies comes from either Moses or God; the only comparable figure in The Stand is Mother Abigail, who is not involved in the decision. Moses’ spies are sent to a land that, while contemporaneously hostile, is the eventual Israelite destination and a land that is described as good. There are twelve spies instead of three. The spies go together, and with the exception of two of them, ultimately fail on their mission and are punished together. As a corollary to them being sent separately, they are also told separately about their mission. Tom’s sendoff is very telling:

• "Tom," Stu said. "Yes." "Are you the same Tom that Nick met in Oklahoma? Are you the same Tom we know when you're awake?" ... He shifted a little, his sleeping face calm. "I am God's Tom… Where shall I go?" "West, Tom." Tom moaned. It was a sound that made the hair on the nape of Stu's neck stand on end. "What are we sending him into?” And maybe he knew." ... "West," Tom said. "West, yes... We're sending you to look, Tom. To look and see. Then to come back." "Come back and tell." "Can you do that?" "Yes. Unless they catch and kill me." Stu winced; they all winced. "You go by yourself, Tom. Always west. Can you find west?"*

“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.” These words, commonly attributed to Horace Greeley, were emblematic of the American zeitgeist of the 19th century. Manifest destiny provided a societal impetus to expand west and confirmed the inevitability of American cultural superiority. The west was the frontier, the boundary between civilization and barren wilderness. The phrase also embodies the spirit of rugged individualism, the idea that success and progress are attainable through individual effort and self-reliance without needing institutional intervention. The young man, a lonely individual, must go west, away from the trappings of comfort and civilization that the East coast provided.

Handicapped as he may be, Tom’s quest is quintessentially American. He must venture away from home, away from “good” civilization, and go west into the unknown. The direction to Las Vegas is west, of course, but so is the trajectory of the Boulder Free Zone. In the aftermath of an apocalypse, people who have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles could not be blamed for being lethargic, scared, and liable to hunker down until the winter. Some in the Boulder Free Zone do just that. However, if the American spirit is ever to be captured in the reborn democratic experiment, they must eventually go west.

There is something twisted in this turn of events, the same way that the United States itself has been twisted and morphed into something nearly unrecognizable. Greeley referred to “young men,” the bright youth who yearned for economic opportunity and wanted to make a name for themselves. Stu and Larry are instead sending the handicapped and the old. Unfortunately, and mainly because of how intertwined they are with the political system in Boulder, those who are most capable of carrying out this mission are unable to embark on it. “Can you find west?" King is using Stu to point out what lies at the soul of America, and what the book’s characters must find to reach salvation—the individual and the West.

Both Tom and the Judge are sent to the West, but only the Judge is sent to “spy out the land”:

“Is that so funny? What should I do, look happy about ... about ...” “Sending me west,” the Judge said quietly. “To spy out the land. Isn’t that about it?” “That’s exactly it.” “I wondered how long it would be before the idea would surface. It is tremendously important, of course, tremendously necessary if the Free Zone is to be assured its full chance to survive. We have no real idea what he’s up to over there. He might as well be on the dark side of the moon.”

The Judge does not go to find the West—he is simply sent westward. He goes not out of any real sense of individuality but out of a sense of loyalty to the entire Free Zone. The Judge—who understands his task in a way that is impossible for Tom—discusses the practicality of it and why it is done. This is much more reminiscent of the Numbers’ narrative of the spies, who are sent for a very specific reason:

“Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (Numbers, 18-20)

The Judge is on a mostly military endeavor, the same as the 12 spies. This similarity to the biblical passage is ironic because the Judge criticizes Mother Abigail for her religious mania just a few sentences later. He is placed perfectly in a Bible-like story but refuses to recognize its religious nature.

So, what are we left with? Two spies, both of whom will presumably be instrumental in saving the Free Zone, one on a twisted version of seeking out the frontier and one on a pseudo-biblical voyage. These are diametrically opposed quests, with them taking place on individual versus societal levels. It would not be impossible for them both to succeed, but only one can serve as the blueprint for the society that will be built.

These are two things that are at the core of America’s history, and two things that I would be willing to bet would survive most apocalypses: religion and individualism. The great unifier and the great separator. King strips down the institutional veneer of Washington D.C and complex bureaucracy and exposes what he thinks would survive societal collapse—and how they could be used to rebuild. In doing so, he excises the evils of 20th century America and places them in a boogeyman—Randall Flagg—where they must be confronted. These two shots in the dark will determine the guiding light that takes humanity past the brink and to another chance at society.

In the end, the Constitution is re-ratified because it must be re-ratified if the novel’s characters are to hold on to the good that came before and remind those in the Free Zone of the values that they stand for. It may be an exercise in futility in the practical sense, given the skeletal structure of their government, but it serves as a symbol of the continuity of aspiration.

The Stand depicts a battle between good and evil, a literal “last stand” of the human race. This path is well-traveled. The more interesting question to me is, how will that good be made, and what is it made of? This is what the denizens of the Free Zone are truly trying to answer.