65 pages • 2-hour read
All That's Left in the World
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of anti-gay bias, ableism, gender discrimination, racism, child death, illness, and death.
The Value of Human Connection
One of the primary conflicts throughout All That’s Left in the World is the struggle between community and isolation. Although the boys begin the novel isolated, they quickly learn to trust each other and spend the rest of the novel wholly devoted to each other. However, as they travel south, they face several communities which threaten their safety, forcing them to choose between compromising their morals and potentially endangering themselves for safety—or continuing to travel the dangerous world alone. These communities emphasize the duality that exists with human connection: Although it provides safety in numbers, it creates other dangers with the need for trust and alignment to the values of others. Brown literalizes this tension with gates and keys: Henri’s door opens, Eddie unlocks the Keys’ fence, but Fort Caroline “admits” newcomers only after stripping their autonomy via questionnaires and ration ledgers. At DCA, a binder meant to deliver hope instead delivers truth; in Key Largo, a census finally confirms it—connection can wound or save depending on who holds the records.
The relationship that Andrew and Jamie develop, first friendship and then romance, posits a solution to this conflict between belonging in a group or remaining alone. When Andrew and Jamie are attacked at the cabin by Howard and his group, Jamie marvels at how quickly he has come to care about Andrew. At the same time, Andrew’s point of view gives the reader insight into his growing feelings, as he acknowledges that he is falling in love with Jamie. From this, the boys commit to staying with each other, leaving the safety of their cabin and traveling south. It is because of their relationship that they boys are able to find food and water for survival, escape the dangers of Fort Caroline, and overcome their grief and guilt over what they have done in the past. In the end, it is because of Andrew’s commitment to Jamie that Jamie is able to survive his gunshot wound, reaffirming their love and faith in each other for the novel’s sequel. Their love repeatedly converts chance into rescue. Jamie’s midnight watch, Cara’s covering fire, Henri’s multi-tool, and Eddie’s risk on strangers all cascade from the boys’ choice to keep choosing one another. Even small intimacies—Jamie’s thumb tracing Andrew’s knuckles—precede major acts of survival, stitching the emotional arc to the practical one.
In addition to the romantic relationship between Andrew and Jamie, friendship is another vital human connection in the novel. When the boys meet Henri, she welcomes them into their home and provides them with physical support on their journey. Additionally, she gives advice to Andrew, emphasizing the importance of his relationship with Jamie and the value in being honest with them. It is because of Henri’s multi-tool that they are able to escape from the people of Fort Caroline, affirming the literal value in their choice to form a friendship with her. Similarly, Cara becomes a vital piece of the boys’ journey, helping them escape Fort Caroline, giving them a map to safety, and finding the supplies necessary to save Jamie’s life after he is shot. In the end, Henri and Jamie emphasize the value of friendship, reaffirming the idea that human connection—as long as it is with the right people—is vital to survival.
The novel’s end leaves the future for Andrew and Jamie ambiguous. They continue to question whether they will be better off staying in the community, returning to live with Henri, or going all the way back to the cabin. As they look out over the ocean, the narrator thinks, “I’m scared and I’m angry and those worrisome thoughts return. All the horrible things that could happen to us. But then he puts his arm around me and I feel safe again” (338). Ultimately, Jamie and Andrew may struggle to plan their future and may not even make the right choice; however, they have become confident that their love to each other will continue to play a vital role, no matter what they choose. That final embrace answers the book’s opening standoff at gunpoint. Where suspicion once filled the doorway of a cabin, trust now frames a horizon.
Rebuilding Trust After Trauma
Through the shifting first-person point of view that alternates between Andrew and Jamie, the reader learns just how deeply impacted by their past experiences these boys are. After surviving a pandemic that killed everyone in their lives, they struggle to create human connection. This is rooted in their fear of suffering as they did before when they lost their friends and family, and also in their unwillingness to trust others in the danger of the world around them.
This internal conflict becomes clear from the very opening scene of the novel, as Andrew and Jamie both individually struggle with whether to trust the other when Andrew enters the cabin. Jamie holds his gun on Andrew, insisting that he needs to leave even after he sees his severely injured leg. Similarly, Andrew refuses to take the painkillers from Jamie initially, wondering if Jamie would poison him. Moments of distrust litter the opening scenes between the two boys. After Jamie bandages Andrew’s leg, Andrew briefly wonders, “This place sounds amazing. I let myself think, just for a second, whether I could take it from him” (18); then, as Andrew yells out in pain, Jamie thinks “it could be a trick. He could be faking it, calling out to whoever is outside waiting for him” (19); and when Andrew reaches into his bag, Jamie thinks, “I realize that must be where his gun is. My heart leaps into my throat, but my hands are full” (24). Each of these moments lend insight into the boys’ thoughts, centering around their lack of trust for each other. Even after they have been alone together for a while, after they have both chosen not to harm each other, and even after Jamie helps Andrew, thoughts of distrust permeate their interaction, emphasizing how difficult it is for them to rebuild trust with each other after everything they have been through. Later, Jamie quietly carries Andrew’s secret to Alexandria rather than confronting him; this is trust as patience—he protects Andrew’s agency to disclose, even when withholding hurts.
This idea is similarly reflected in Andrew and Jamie’s decision to allow Cara to join them on their journey. In Fort Caroline, Cara draws two maps for the boys: the first allows them to find the supply depot and the second gives them a safe route down to Florida, avoiding the traps and routes set up by the other people of Fort Caroline. Despite this help that she gives them and the fact that she is clearly unhappy in Fort Caroline, both boys still struggle to trust her when she shows up in Florida asking to join them. Just like with the first interaction between Jamie and Andrew, their first interaction with Cara is littered with distrust. They question where she came from originally, why she was in Fort Caroline, and why she stayed so long before trying to escape, wondering the entire time whether she is going to betray them. Ultimately, just as they did before, they choose to trust Cara, despite their struggle to make human connection after everything they have been through. Cara then proves trustworthiness precisely where institutions failed. She draws escape routes the census cannot see, stitches Jamie when hospitals lie in ash, and returns with supplies when no system will.
In the end, the most valuable part of rebuilding trust in the novel is the fact that the boys have no other choice. In a world where they have lost everyone they love, they will forever be traumatized by this loss and the things that they experience in the post-apocalyptic world. However, if they want to continue to survive, faith and trust in others becomes a valuable piece of their journey.
Shifting Morality in the Face of Death
The unique world that Brown builds in All That’s Left in the World allows for the examination of human behavior after much of civilization has been stripped away. In the absence of government, laws, and punishment, it becomes clear from the start of the novel that the survivors of the pandemic do not operate under the same rules as before. As Andrew and Jamie try to live alone in the cabin, keeping to themselves and remaining self-sufficient, they are confronted by Howard’s group that lives nearby. His excuse for taking their food is that they must pay “tax” for living on their land and using their resources, forcing the boys to leave the relative safety of their cabin out of fear of the dangerous society being built around them. Similarly, when they encounter the people of Fort Caroline, Andrew’s sexuality threatens their safety, as the boys realize that antigay bias, gender discrimination, racism, and more are commonplace within this community; the white leaders do whatever they can to promote themselves and maintain control. In both of these instances, Andrew and Jamie realize that the morality of the new world has shifted. Instead of centering on safety, individual rights, and protection for all, it instead centers on the selfish need for survival. In the end, the boys decide that these are compromises that they are not willing to make within their own morality in exchange for safety.
The central internal conflict that both Andrew and Jamie face throughout the novel is the changes they undergo in relation to their own morality. For both characters, they resist the temptation to coalesce to these new societies in exchange for comfort, yet they both commit murder in retaliation to direct confrontation. When Andrew is struggling to find food a few months before the start of the novel, he kills Joanne and George Foster, stopping them from stealing his food or harming him. Similarly, when Andrew and Jamie are threatened by Harvey, Jamie does not hesitate to kill Harvey, preventing their return to Fort Caroline and likely saving their lives. For both boys, their struggle with what they have done haunts them throughout the novel—yet they both insist that they did what was necessary for their own survival. In this way, their moralities have shifted: they have done something they never would have done before (kill someone) and justify it based on their need for survival. Brown marks each killing with ritual corrective: Andrew buries the Fosters in their yard; Jamie covers Harvey’s body with his own shirt and vomits. Remorse is the boundary line that keeps them from becoming the communities they flee.
In the end, Amy’s poignant question to the boys encapsulates how their situations differ from the other dangerous people that they encounter. She asks, “Would you say you’re happier for it? With those people gone from the world?” (332). Jamie’s immediate and unequivocal “no” emphasizes why Jamie and Andrew are still good people despite what they have done. As Jamie thinks, the deaths “made things worse, and even after we escaped, we’re still dealing with the fallout. It’s like something inside me was taken away, taken from both of us” (333). Ultimately, the regret and grief that Andrew and Jamie feel makes an important point about morality. Although they may be willing to do things they never would have before in the face of death, they are still anchored by the value they place on human life.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence