More so than most other science fiction I have read, there is an obvious deeper message present in The Comet beyond the comet itself. Rather, the themes of racism and race relations seemed to dominant The Comet, something that I did not find surprising given that the author, W.E.B Du Bois, is best known for his work with the civil rights movement. Something interesting I noticed is that this premise of an African American man and white woman being forced to work together to survive a disaster is very similar to the plot of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Within the first sentences, the sense of Jim being viewed as inferior is evident: “Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him in a way that stung.” After the comet strikes, as Jim and Julia begin to realize they may be the only humans on Earth, there is this sense that they were working together as equals, despite the fact that they clearly were not viewed as such before the disaster.
In the end, the theme of racism makes a return. When it is discovered that only New York was hit, and when they reunite with Frank and Julia’s father, Frank immediately suspects Jim of wrongdoing.While she does assure Frank that Jim did her no harm and even helped her, immediately after the reunion, Julia never looks back to Jim, not even thanking him directly. This to me sends a message that life goes on, and that while Jim and Julia may have relied on each other for this brief period, they would now return to their previous lives, perhaps to never see each other again. As Jim and Julia are reunited with their surviving family, racism can be seen among the bystanders, with racial slurs and someone even calling for Jim to be lynched. Still, Julia’s father offers Jim a job, and there are those in the crowd who defend Jim for his heroic actions, perhaps representing those whites who were active in the civil rights movement, making it appear that little had actually changed. More than anything, this suggests to me that the old social hierarchy was entrenched enough to survive the destruction of a major city.