The main setting of the novel is New York City, renamed Zone One in the aftermath of the virus. New York City is not only a site of personal significance for Mark, the novel’s protagonist, but also a symbol of modernity and progress. At the novel’s beginning, Mark has a flashback to being in his Uncle Lloyd’s New York City apartment, which represents to him a promise of financial success, as it overlooks the city skyline. While there, young Mark had marveled at the tremendous history of the city emblematized by the vast skyline. Mark had noted that “The new buildings in wave upon wave drew themselves out of the rubble, shaking off the past like immigrants” (6). Mark understood from an early age how the city insisted on destructive acts to make room for new buildings and people. To him, this is a crucial facet of modernity symbolized by the once-great New York City.

The political and economic significance of New York City is why the U.S. government is so insistent on reconstructing it in the aftermath of the virus. Ms. Macy, the public-relations official from Buffalo, states that the rebuilding of New York City would ensure hope for the future of reconstruction: “The