The title The Passage is significant in the novel. Taken literally, a passage is a pathway between two places. The word passage also means journey, as someone passes from one place to another. It can also refer to an excerpt of a book. Each part of The Passage begins with a poetic passage from a lauded poet: Even the act of opening a book and reading is a passage from one state to another, using passages as the delivery system for a story.

On a poetic level, a passage is a transition between conditions. This takes many forms, with the passage from life to death being the most significant. Lear writes to Paul from Bolivia: “What strange places our lives carry us to, what dark passages” (24). He’s writing prior to undertaking the word that will unmake the world as it was. The viral outbreak is a passage between the world without virals, and the world of the Colony, in which survival against the virals is the priority.

Passages can also represent a coming of age, or evolutions in a person’s life. Wolgast passes from husband, to father, to bereaved father, to ex-husband in a cruelly short time.