Tracy-Assignment

Almost the first time I've ever done this on time, yay.
The end of The Road!! I’m really sad that the father dies, but at least the boy lives. With people he doesn’t know whether they are good or not. But anyway he’s still alive.
Again, I’ll be focusing on father-son relationships. I guess not relationships, since it’s just one relationship.
From page 256 to 258, there is the man threatening the other man who stole their stuff.
(I can’t write it here because that alone would probably take at least two hundred words so I’ll just write some parts of it.)
Back. More.
He stepped back again.
Papa? The boy said.
Be quiet.
He kept his eyes on the thief. Goddamn you, he said.
Papa please don’t kill the man.
The thief’s eyes swung mildly. The boy was crying. (p.256)In the end the father didn’t kill the man. But the way the father was going, I think he might have killed the man. But he didn’t, and he listened to the boy.

And they set out along the read south with the boy crying and looked back at the nude and slatlike creature standing there in the road shivering and hugging himself. Oh Papa, he sobbed.
Stop it.
I cant stop it.
What do you think would have happened to us if we hadnt caught him? Just stop it.
I’m trying. (p.258)
At the start of the book the boy would have been mad and wouldn’t have spoke to the man. But the boy tries to understand his father, why his father acts the way he does.
I think both the man and the boy are trying to understand and be good to each other.

What about dreams? You used to tell me dreams sometimes.
I don’t want to talk about anything.
Okay.
I don’t have good dreams anyway. They’re always about something bad happening. You said that was okay because good dreams are not a good sign.
Maybe. I don’t know. (p.269)
The man is unsure about what he thought before. The man used to think good dreams were not a good sign, but now he’s not sure. Good dreams are not signs: I think this is pretty negative, and that he’s changing to be more positive.

And the saddest part… I almost cried while I read this.
No chances. Do you hear?
I want to be with you
You cant.
Please.
You cant. You have to carry the fire.
I dont know how ot.
Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there. I can see it. (p. 278-279)Carrying the fire was one of the conditions of the good guys. So the man is saying that the boy has to live, being a good guy. And the boy is a good guy. By the way the man’s saying the fire is inside you, I guess carrying the fire would be acting like the boy: sacrificing ourselves for the benefit of others.

I am sad this book is over… I hope I have the courage to read this difficult book again.