The Mist

Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1980

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-11

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary

David tries to sleep for a few hours. When he wakes up, Amanda is worried about Mrs. Carmody and her expanding group of followers, whose devotion resembles “some crazy kind of church service” (90). Four more people have died by suicide, while others are becoming increasingly despondent. Ollie worries that Mrs. Carmody may convince enough people about the viability of human sacrifice by the next morning. David begins to suspect the monsters outside are attracted to scent. He wonders whether he and a small group can reach his car before the monsters detect them. After searching for Steff, he wants to go south to escape the mist. He plans with Ollie for an early departure the next day.

As darkness falls, the smaller creatures return. This time, however, they do not enter the store. Mrs. Carmody continues to preach, and her congregation grows. In the early hours of the morning, Ollie wakes David. They gather Billy, Amanda, Mrs. Turman, and several others. Mrs. Carmody convinces her followers that the only thing that can save them from the apocalyptic mist is human sacrifice. As David tries to lead the escape, Mrs. Carmody calls on her followers to sacrifice Billy and Amanda. Ollie shoots her, and her followers disperse. As she collapses, she says that her attackers will “all die out there” (97). David leads his small group out of the store to his car.

Chapter 11 Summary

Ollie runs to the car and opens the door. Then, something attacks him from inside the mist. The others are attacked or run back to the store, so only David, Billy, Amanda, and Mrs. Reppler reach the car. David takes Ollie’s gun, noting the three remaining bullets. With four people in the car, he resolves to find “some other way out” (99) for himself if everything goes wrong. David starts the car and drives slowly out of the lot. They drive along the broken road through the dense mist. David tries to return home, but he cannot pass a tree that blocks the small road to his house. He forces himself to come to terms with the reality that Steff is likely dead. He knows he must think about Billy’s safety. He puts the car in reverse, cries, and drives toward Portland, searching for a way out of Maine. They glimpse terrible creatures in the mist. Billy sleeps while David drives to the Maine turnpike. The radio is completely silent, and they see no living person along the roads. They pass giant creatures and lines of abandoned cars. David wonders how long they can continue driving and whether he can acquire more gas for his car. They reach a service station and stop for the night. As the others sleep, David begins to write down everything that happened in the four days since the storm. He leaves the papers on the counter for someone to find. In the manager’s office, he finds a radio. While desperately adjusting the tuning, he hears a faint word: “Hartford” (104). Though he cannot be sure of what he heard, the word gives him hope.

Chapters 10-11 Analysis

The novel’s final chapter reveals that David’s narration in The Mist is a written account of his experiences, left on the counter at a service stop while he drives south. The revelation gives a new dimension to David’s narration, suggesting that he intended his experiences to be read and understood by people who came after him. The people who survived whatever happened during the novel’s events would, he hoped, understand the truth about what happened, even if he cannot explain why the events occurred. This also implies that David intended the account to be more than an explanation. David includes many personal thoughts and details of his transgressions, such as his brief affair with Amanda. The inclusion of these elements of the narration suggests a deeper purpose to David’s decision to write everything down. He feels guilty about the deaths of the people in the supermarket. He feels guilty that he never saw Steff again. He feels guilty that he betrayed her by sleeping with Amanda. The written explanation of his experiences takes on the tone of a confession. David confesses his sins to an audience of people he does not know so that he can relieve his feelings of guilt. By helping others, such as Amanda or whoever reads the story, he hopes to atone for his failures. David feels the burden of guilt pushing him to save his son, Amanda, and Mrs. Reppler. While he might not be able to save their lives, he wants the world to know that he tried.

The further the group drives in the car, the more they realize that they may not survive. Not only does the mist seem endless, but it is also populated by giant creatures that terrify and astound them in equal measure. The sheer scale of the monsters that David sees while driving south suggests that humanity does not stand a chance of survival. If the people in the supermarket struggled to deal with the smallest creatures that attacked them, these giants would give the survivors no chance. The further David drives and the more he sees of the monsters that live in the mist, the more he must accept that their chances of survival are bleak. David knows that he has a gun with enough bullets to put Billy, Amanda, and Mrs. Reppler out of their misery. He has the power to end their suffering but not his own. His dwindling hopes as he drives south present him with the possibility of an even more bleak future: eventually, he must kill his son and two other people before giving himself up to the monsters. David keeps driving because the implication of stopping is even more tragic than carrying on without hope.

At the end of the novel, David is given a small boost of optimism. While fitfully listening to the radio, he thinks he hears a word. The word is nothing more than the name of a town, and he never hears it again, but the brief interruption to the radio static is all he needs to keep him going. When he hears the word Hartford, David decides that he can continue. His uncertainty reveals his desperation. He cannot be certain that what he heard was anything more than static, but he is desperate for hope. He chooses to believe, even if he is lying to himself. Much like the people trapped in the supermarket who eventually came to believe Mrs. Carmody’s visions of the end of the world, he embraces a possibility because it is preferable to a dreadful certainty. David may be lying to himself about what he heard because he is eager to maintain hope. Without hope, he must admit that everything he has done is for nothing and that he cannot protect his son, the one objective that remained. David convinces himself that he hears the word Hartford because anything else would be an admission that he has already lost everything.