Wool

On Jahns’s walk back up the silo, she realizes that the society is more stratified than she’d ever realized before. The divisions are especially stark in this chapter as the tensions between Mechanical and IT emerge. Members of both departments speak of the others with disdain. IT, on level 34, is near the “up top” (100), while Mechanical, at the very bottom of the silo, is regarded as the “down deep” (79). Juliette tells Jahns: “Down here, we joke that this place was laid out to keep us well out of the way. And that’s how it feels, sometimes” (102). IT occupies a much more privileged position, and, to Juliette’s resentment, is more easily able to procure essential materials. IT also has a spacious, bright space with high-quality furniture and paper, while Mechanical is cramped into a series of small corridors.

IT’s exemption to the power holiday, to the detriment of the rest of the silo, further underscores its high status. To Juliette, this seems backward, as Mechanical is responsible for the power and manufacturing in the silo, while IT’s function is unclear. The tension between the two departments represents the difference between tangible manufacturing and the abstract industry of information technology. The physical traits of the characters underscore this difference as well—Juliette is strong and sinewy, while Bernard is a physically degenerated knowledge worker, with a protruding gut, small hands, and glasses. As first-world countries like the United States have increasingly moved away from manufacturing and toward a services-based economy in the 20th and 21st centuries, this depiction of post-apocalyptic society comments on the dangers of this order of priorities.

Bernard, so far removed from and disdainful of physical work, is also a representative of the aristocratic upper class, while Mechanical are the laborers at the bottom of the silo’s hierarchy. The class divisions are not directed by the silo’s laws, but have developed in the minds of the residents, showing the natural human tendency toward hierarchies.

While Bernard views Juliette’s rerouting of materials from IT as delinquent, she feels justified in taking the heat tape. Juliette’s attitude shows that she follows her own moral compass and desire for practical results before submitting to the rules of others, which is a dangerous quality in the repressive and fragile society of the silo. Her repair of the generator indicates her determination and confidence in her own abilities. The generator, which supplies power for the whole silo, is a symbol for the society of the silo as a whole, which needs careful preventative maintenance to keep it from falling apart.

Marnes’s and Jahns’s tragic romance and long-repressed feelings represent the cost of the rigid norms of the silo, where the law regulates relationships, and emotions cannot be truly expressed.

The structure of Wool’s story is unique in that the hero, Juliette, is not introduced until a significant portion of the story has already elapsed. By the end of the second chapter, Bernard emerges as a villain of Wool. Biased against mechanics and the elderly, he harbors an elitist view of IT. Jahns’s assassination after their clash over Juliette seems to be further evidence of his sinister nature. Her death is a bad omen that makes Juliette’s reasoning to accept the position of sheriff ironic—“If people like Jahns and Marnes were able to get by, to survive, she figured she’d be okay” (118).