The Mist

The more time that people spend in the supermarket, the more they become attracted to the cult of Mrs. Carmody. She is introduced to the novel through humorous observations by David, who refers to her as a slightly deranged antique store owner with strange opinions. By the end of the story, however, she organizes a band of fervent religious believers and inspires them to sacrifice humans to appease God. The growth in Mrs. Carmody’s stature is made possible by events elsewhere in the supermarket. The longer the situation continues, the more confused and anxious people become. David, Ollie, and other people in the store have assumed the mantle of leadership, but they cannot explain the dangers outside the store. Mrs. Carmody’s apocalyptic rambling fills this vacuum of information. The longer the situation remains unexplained and the more terrified people become, the more appealing her religious fervor becomes. She offers her followers an explanation, even though she has no way to be sure of the truth about what she says. The followers are made to choose between a lack of an explanation or a half-explanation. They choose the latter, believing that Mrs. Carmody’s conviction makes up for her lack of evidence. David and the others have nothing to counter the religious narrative, so they eventually give up. The cult of Mrs. Carmody becomes an existential threat to the people in the supermarket because she offers the illusion of explanation when they cannot come to terms with what is happening in their lives. She may be wrong, but they find comfort in her explanations anyway.

David leaves his son alone for a short time to have an affair with Amanda. The relationship between David and Amanda is brief, intense, and seemingly devoid of passion. While they are attracted to one another, the physical act of sex they perform is conditioned by their relationships with other people. David spends the intimate moment thinking about Steff while Amanda calls out another man’s name. In the supermarket, they find comfort in each other as blank voids. Amanda is a physical shape onto which David can project his idea of Steff, being with her even though he knows that she is likely dead. In the same way, Amanda can enjoy a moment of guilty passion while thinking about her husband even though he has probably suffered the same fate. The affair between David and Amanda is not built on lust or immorality. Instead, the brief burst of passion reveals their desire for their partner and their unspoken grief that said partner might already be dead. They use each other to compensate for their unspeakable sense of loss.

The brief trip to the pharmacy foreshadows what will happen at the novel’s end. The group walks the short distance to the pharmacy, only to find that the people inside are already dead. The brutal scene they encounter prepares them for the reality of their new lives: wherever they go, they will likely face a similarly violent mess. The pharmacy shows David that he was lucky to be in the supermarket when the mist arrived. Though he has felt trapped inside the building, he now considers himself fortunate compared to the people inside the pharmacy or in the parking lot. Two more revelations strike him: firstly, that the creatures in the mist hunt by scent and, secondly, that Steff is probably dead. Even though David has seen the inside of the pharmacy, even though he knows that the rest of the world may be in a similar state, the realization about Steff hits him hardest. He tries to imagine how she might have survived but cannot bring himself to voice these thoughts. David reconsiders his fortunes and realizes that he was lucky to be in the supermarket, but this realization carries dreadful implications that limit his optimism and threaten to crush the last vestiges of his hope.