The recently released 6th Assessment Report by the UN Climate Change Panel presents a pessimistic assessment of the world’s progress in controlling global warming. That makes this an appropriate time to feature science fiction writer Jason Gurley’s Quiet Town, a grim picture of what may be the future of low-lying townships along world coastlines. Bev, her son Benji, and annoying neighbor Ezze are among the few remaining residents of a small town in which the rising ocean has just breached the sea wall. Experts had originally predicted that this would not happen for fifty years: it had taken five!
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who’s the antagonist in the story?
Well-written short story. Where is it set? Everything’s grey.
The antagonist here is not a “who” but an “it” (nature and/or global warming). All we know about the setting is that it is a small, low-lying coastal town. The precise location is deliberately vague, to emphasize the fact that the events described could take place in any similar town, anywhere in the world.
How is nature the antagonist?
Thank you for the question. The protagonist (main character) in the story is Bev. An antagonist (person or force working against the protagonist) doesn’t have to be a person. In this case it is a force (nature as manifested in rising sea levels) that is disrupting Bev’s life and in the process of forcing her and the remaining townspeople out of their homes.