The Road Blog 2

The Road is a shocking and haunting novel. It took me a while to completely adjust to Cormac McCarthy's abrupt sentences and his way of blurting information in fragments, but I have come to appreciate the writing's simplicity. In the novel, the man and the boy are still on their journey to the coast, hoping to find refuge there. They are wary of every person they see, which was puzzling at first because it seemed to me the only way to survive in a barren world would be receiving help from others. However, two scenes in the story made me understand why the father and son could only rely on themselves. First, they encounter a man from a group traveling on a diesel truck. The stranger is interrogated by the father but he offers the two some food. The father does not believe him, which was a good decision because the stranger grabbed the boy and threatened to kill him. The father shoots the stranger and the boy is covered with his blood as he and his father run away. This scene was the most exciting part of the novel so far, yet it was extremely haunting to see how men turned on each other when they are in need. The second scene was shocking to say the least. The man and boy search an empty house for food and they find a locked door in the pantry. Despite the boy's protests, the man uses a spade to open the door and descends the steps. As soon as he sees what lies down there, he knows they are in immediate danger. The reason was that he saw several scared and naked people lying against the wall, and even a man with no legs lying on the mattress. These people were captured and were now being eaten by other men because of the lack of food. Although cannibalism seems unrealistic right now in our civilized world, it could be a possibility following a near apocalypse similar to the novel. It reminded me of a clip from a movie we watched in psychology where the survivors of a plane crash decided to eat the remains of the victims in order to survive. Even though killing people for food is going a step further, it showed that people can do unconscionable things to live. McCarthy contrasts the terrible things done by some survivors with the love between the man and his son.