Sunday, April 4, 2010
Jack -- assignment 2
The Road is a book that explains the living of a father and his son, who are the only human beings. They are going to south, where is warmer, and during the journey, they get into many places. For instance, they drop by a station and get the oil. Then they get into a house and get blankets. After visiting a dam, they start to climb a mountain. The father and his son at last arrive at Rock City and stay in a truck. I could know that their journey was tiring and gloomy.
At the first time that I read The Road, it was really hard for me to get the exact characters, settings, and what the characters are doing because there was not any background knowledge I could get from the introduction of the story. However, as I read more and more, I found several information about the three thing I mentioned above.
The thing that I can notice is that the two characters are the father and the son, since the man takes care of a little boy and calls a little boy "son". The father worries about his son because the mono gray scenery all over the world can make his son crazy and depressed; therefore, he frequently asks his son whether he feels good or not. In addition, the father gets the necessities from discarded shops and uses a supermarket cart in order to transport them to where they stay. For example, when the father moves the tarp, which is used as a table for them, he uses the cart to move it.
Second, the two characters were living in destroyed area where the ash is everything that can be seen. Even though the father uses his binocular to search the tiniest evidence of human being, he is not able to find any. But he can't relax. He uses a mirror to look back, and he takes a great care of a slight movement near him. If I were in that situation, in which I have to be concerned of everything, I would not be able to make a living. Feeling too nervous, I would die, crazy. Also, what I want to emphasize is that they are living inside the world that is full of ash. Have you ever breathe the air of ashtray? The smell of the ash is not the important thing, but the fine powder is the one. It can make a big trouble when I breathe because I should inhale all the bad ingredients of ash, and perhaps, the father gets sick due to that polluted air. He constantly coughs, from time to time, with blood.
*Question: Is he talking to himself or somebody like a God?
Can I ask you something? he said.
Yes. Of course.
Are we going to dies?
Sometime not now.
He says "we", which means the man whom the father is talking to is not the one of them, but there is nobody to have a conversation with.
Lastly, I was curious why the boy does not know anything about coke. I can't remember but somewhere, the father gets Coca Cola and gives it to this son. His son, strangely, says that it is bubbly. Isn't this ridiculous that modernized person does not know anything about the coke?
-I had to use a lot of 'some' words because so many things were uncertain yet, actually for me.
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Your writing is very interesting for me to read because its' structure is different from others. However, in your second question, I don't think that the man is talking to himself or to God. When I was reading, I thought that the boy was asking the man the question and the man was answering him. and since the man is the protagonist and it said "Can I ask you something? he said.", it means that the boy was asking him the question... isn't it?? Anyway, that's what I thought... and the third question, I think it might be possible for the boy not to know about Coke because, they had stayed in the post-apocalyptic situation for some while, and the boy is young.
ReplyDeleteI can only give answers the same as Seora's. Think that the boy and the man were having conversation, so the boy is asking the man whether they'll gonna die or not. And coke, yeah, the boy wouldn't have had any coke before the apocalypse since he was a baby and too young to drink a soda, and after the apocalypse, the situation didn't allow him.
ReplyDeleteI like your organizing things in your own way and explaining them in three sections. And asking questions at the same time! I think I'd ask questions when I'm posting my work but I'm afraid I'll have too many things to ask. :-)
Fine questions, Jack. I think the dialogue you've quoted is about the man and the boy, but you're right in that it often seems to be reflecting on some truth larger than just the two of them. At times the man does seem to be talking to God in an angry way.
ReplyDeleteThe Coke scene shows that the boy was very young, perhaps not even born, when the world became what it is in this book. The man refers several times to "what was before" and the "early days" following whatever made civilization die out. The boy has no memories or experiences from the civilized world, while his father is haunted by it in the nightmares.
You are perfectly allowed to reflect on parts of the book that caused you difficulty. I hope your classmates' answers helped a little!
I agree with you about the nervous breakdown-I'd go crazy too if I had to be that careful. But I don't think the boy didn't know what a coke tasts like. Probably he hadn't tasted coke for a long time, perhaps years, so it might taste new and funny to him.
ReplyDeleteWell, that was what I was thinking, but after I read teacher Diana's comment I think I understand.
I thought the ash-inhaling part was interesting. I hadn't thought of that.