Assignment 2
2)
The background environment of the man reminds me of the movie “I am legend”. The movie’s background was also based on an apocalypse of mankind (although every other species except mankind was alive unlike ‘The Road’). There is a similarity in between the two protagonists ‘Robert’ and the man. The protagonist in the movie‘I am legend’, Robert had difficulties coping with the reality that he is the solemankind living in the world. In this movie, Robert tried to overcome his lonelinessby interacting with the mannequins imaginarilyin stores.In ‘the Road’, in my point of view, the man expresses his desire to meet the world before the apocalypse by dreaming of it. However, based upon the statement that the man thinks such dreams are useless, the man is having an inner conflict between his desires and rational thoughts.
“And Dreams were so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly.”Pg.21
This phrase reminds of when I came back to Korea from the United Kingdom. I had dreams nearly every night about the nation. It was really sweet to be in Britain although it was in my dream but disappointed when I was woken up by the sound of Korean TV coming from the living room and realizing that I was back in Korea. To be specific, I was hanging around with my friends in downtown chatting, laughing but all in a sudden, I started to hear Korean people having a conversation, and the world I was in began to go blur, twist and I was looking up the ceiling. I soon figured my surroundings, and became disappointed.
3)
After reading my first 50 pages, I have wondered why the stores and homes were so bleak of foods and goods. There are hardly and food left in those places which is very weird since I thought that the man and the boy are the only people who survived the apocalypse.
My Questions:
1) Was the apocalypse along term process? So that the people slowly died whilst consuming foods and goods?
2) Were there any other survivors? The other survivors may have moved to the south already, having used up the daily necessaries in the regions they passed by.
My answers:
1) But there were corpses lying around the city, this would not have happened if the apocalypse was a long term process. It must have been a short term event. Perhaps a volcano or a deep impact.
2) “Someone had come out of the woods in the night and continued down the melted roadway,”pg. 49
There are two things that can be inferred from this quotation. One, the man and the boy are not the only survivors. Two, the survivors show tendency to move towards the south.
In conclusion, there was a mass exodus of majority of survivors moving to the south whilst consuming many life necessaries in the local stores. The man and the boy however, somehow got left behind and try to find necessaries in bleak stores. There is also a part where the man obtains the only can of Coca Cola left in the vending machine lying on the floor and gives it to his son. This is abackup evidence for my idea that there are many other survivors who have already consumed pretty much anything useful in the northern area.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Road
As soon as I opened the first page, I was really overwhelmed by the amount of words I couldn't understand. However as I read the book, I could understand more clearly even thought I still had parts I couldn't understand fully.
This book is mainly about the man and the boy who survived after the earth came to an end. This book starts as the man wakes in the woods in the dark. The man and the boy is planning to go South because the weather is getting cold. They are walking the road and they are the only people walking the road.
The man and the boy don't have names; the man is the man and the boy is the boy.
The world came to its end for unknown reasons and it seems like few years had passed since the disaster.
Somehow the man and the boy survived and they literally have each other to depend on.
The man seems to be the boy's father. The author keeps calling them the man and the boy and I'm quite confused if they are really related or they just found each other after the world ended. Whether they are related or not, the man seems to really love the boy. When the boy asks the man what he is going to do if the boy dies, the man says he is going to die too. I could feel sincerity coming from the man.
Also when the man gave the boy coca cola and cocoa, I thought it was a fatherly thing to do.
The boy seems to be too small to know what's really going around them and I wondered how the man feels. The writing style the author is using is very calm and it doesn't show much of emotions. So we can only guess what the man is feeling.
How would it feel to know that they might be the last human beings?
Despair? Anguish? Hopeless?
I also found it quite ironic that even though all the people are dead, the man and the boy still desperatly try to survive. I always thought communication and interaction between other people made human beings happy and content and the main goal of life is to become happy.
Are they happy? I don't know. Judging from this book I thought that it was their instincts that lead them to survive.
Maybe for them each other's presence is the main thing that keeps them alive.
This book left me with so many questions and uneasy feelings but I can't wait to read more and hopefully I will understand this book better.
This book is mainly about the man and the boy who survived after the earth came to an end. This book starts as the man wakes in the woods in the dark. The man and the boy is planning to go South because the weather is getting cold. They are walking the road and they are the only people walking the road.
The man and the boy don't have names; the man is the man and the boy is the boy.
The world came to its end for unknown reasons and it seems like few years had passed since the disaster.
Somehow the man and the boy survived and they literally have each other to depend on.
The man seems to be the boy's father. The author keeps calling them the man and the boy and I'm quite confused if they are really related or they just found each other after the world ended. Whether they are related or not, the man seems to really love the boy. When the boy asks the man what he is going to do if the boy dies, the man says he is going to die too. I could feel sincerity coming from the man.
Also when the man gave the boy coca cola and cocoa, I thought it was a fatherly thing to do.
The boy seems to be too small to know what's really going around them and I wondered how the man feels. The writing style the author is using is very calm and it doesn't show much of emotions. So we can only guess what the man is feeling.
How would it feel to know that they might be the last human beings?
Despair? Anguish? Hopeless?
I also found it quite ironic that even though all the people are dead, the man and the boy still desperatly try to survive. I always thought communication and interaction between other people made human beings happy and content and the main goal of life is to become happy.
Are they happy? I don't know. Judging from this book I thought that it was their instincts that lead them to survive.
Maybe for them each other's presence is the main thing that keeps them alive.
This book left me with so many questions and uneasy feelings but I can't wait to read more and hopefully I will understand this book better.
Assignment 2. Christine
I really enjoyed reading the first part of The Road, though it was such a challenging book for me. Meanwhile, I’ve found some characters and the situations are matching with the other book’s character, and my own personal experience.
To begin with, there’s a part where the man and the boy find the supermarket, goes in, and finds a Coca Cola. It’s sure that the man also wants it, -or, he probably wants it more than the boy- he gives it to his son to drink it. Even a can of a coke reminds him of the pleasurable memories from the past. The boy asks father if he want some. “I want you to drink it,”(23) the man says. It’s maybe because that he wants to give a piece of the past to his little boy, who’s too young to remember the things before the dooms day. I thought that ‘the man’ is really similar to ‘the Giver’ in the book The Giver. In it, the Giver tries to pass down the memories of the past to the boy Jonas, since it’s part of his job. However, as the time goes by, he passes over big things to minor, littlest things. He tries to give Jonas how was it like long ago. Pleasurable and peaceful times. They become deeply related in a spiritual way with each other.
At the very first part of the book, the boy says to his father.(10) "Are we going to die?" he asks. "Sometime. Not now." the man answers. This conversation between them about living and death really reminded me of the talk with my dad when I was a little kid. I don't know how old is the boy in the book The Road is, but I'm sure that he'd probably felt what I felt that day.
Well, I kind of have lots of thoughts by myself, and sometimes it gets too deep. I believe it was the time right after my grandfather passed away because of lung cancer. I'd never experienced someone so close to me passing away, so for the first time, I was thinking deeply about the life and the death. I suddenly got scared; 'Every human has to die. Then I'll also have to die someday. I won't be able to see, touch, feel, and sing!' The fear of the 'death' was so big that I couldn't control it anymore. With tears bursting out, I ran to my father. "What happened?" he asked. "Dad, am I going to die?" He didn't answer. "Are we all going to die?" I asked again. "Well, someday. But look, Christine. We all have to die. Nothing lasts forever. Yet, the sure thing is that it'll come to you much much later. And when that time comes, you'll be able to understand it and accept it. Sometimes time itself gives you the knowledge." His words calmed me down. Though even now I don't really feel like I could accept the death, but I believe that someday, I will.
To begin with, there’s a part where the man and the boy find the supermarket, goes in, and finds a Coca Cola. It’s sure that the man also wants it, -or, he probably wants it more than the boy- he gives it to his son to drink it. Even a can of a coke reminds him of the pleasurable memories from the past. The boy asks father if he want some. “I want you to drink it,”(23) the man says. It’s maybe because that he wants to give a piece of the past to his little boy, who’s too young to remember the things before the dooms day. I thought that ‘the man’ is really similar to ‘the Giver’ in the book The Giver. In it, the Giver tries to pass down the memories of the past to the boy Jonas, since it’s part of his job. However, as the time goes by, he passes over big things to minor, littlest things. He tries to give Jonas how was it like long ago. Pleasurable and peaceful times. They become deeply related in a spiritual way with each other.
At the very first part of the book, the boy says to his father.(10) "Are we going to die?" he asks. "Sometime. Not now." the man answers. This conversation between them about living and death really reminded me of the talk with my dad when I was a little kid. I don't know how old is the boy in the book The Road is, but I'm sure that he'd probably felt what I felt that day.
Well, I kind of have lots of thoughts by myself, and sometimes it gets too deep. I believe it was the time right after my grandfather passed away because of lung cancer. I'd never experienced someone so close to me passing away, so for the first time, I was thinking deeply about the life and the death. I suddenly got scared; 'Every human has to die. Then I'll also have to die someday. I won't be able to see, touch, feel, and sing!' The fear of the 'death' was so big that I couldn't control it anymore. With tears bursting out, I ran to my father. "What happened?" he asked. "Dad, am I going to die?" He didn't answer. "Are we all going to die?" I asked again. "Well, someday. But look, Christine. We all have to die. Nothing lasts forever. Yet, the sure thing is that it'll come to you much much later. And when that time comes, you'll be able to understand it and accept it. Sometimes time itself gives you the knowledge." His words calmed me down. Though even now I don't really feel like I could accept the death, but I believe that someday, I will.
assignment 2) 'The Road' reminded me of the movie 'The Day after Tomorrow'
At the first time I got this book, I was very curious about the deep meaning of the title ‘The Road’. I had background information that it was an apocalyptic story, but I couldn’t figure out the relationship that the title would have with the events of this story. As I read through, I could see that ‘the road’ was the place where the main characters long for their survival and think again about the lives of human beings. Moreover, while reading through this story I had lots of difficulties comprehending unusual vocabularies that I’ve encountered for the first time. The atmosphere of the words used made me expect that the ending of this story would be rather depressing and negative. However, I’m eager to know how the story would end and how the two main characters (man and the boy) would get through harsh environment and sustain their lives.
Come to think of it, this book, ‘The Road’ seems to have many apocalyptic aspects of the world similar to those of a movie called ‘The Day after Tomorrow’. Mainly concerned with the idea that they both contain events that lead to the end of the world and the fact that they show us the great feeling of love between son and father, it enabled me to be a lot closer with apocalyptic stories or Science Fictions.
To start with, relating ‘The Road’ with the movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ showed me the characteristics of apocalyptic stories and what they warn to the human beings. The basic storyline of ‘The Road’ is that a man and his son were left in the burnt village with ashes and dust all over them. They are trying to move South to avoid the freezing temperatures and survive with all their might. On their way heading South, they encounter hardships with keeping their wills tight and heading for their goals while looking at dead bodies stranded all over. The movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, as many people might already know, is also a disaster movie with the ice freezing and the temperature of the Earth going rapidly down. There are some survivors hoping for the Earth to recover to its original state, meanwhile they fighting for their sustenance, competing with each other for food and basic needs. According to these two stories we can figure out the impact that these incredible disasters could bring to humans. In these cases they only seek for their own survival, not even considering about the others in the same situation. The close bonds between the human beings weaken and the world becomes a place where peace could never be found. Humans begin to act like animals literally and compete for only their own benefits. It seems to show about the real humans and warn us about what we could do in unexpected situations. As many of you might have felt, this is bad, really bad. But there’s some light of hope even in the toughest environment.
What is the light? It’s probably the people whom you love. In ‘The Road’, the man really cares for his son, clutching him tight and giving his son Coca Cola and cocoa to drink. Also in ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, the main characters, a father who is searching through the snow to reach the civilians and the son longing for his dad to come and rescue them from the library worry and pray for each other. In the story they finally meet one another alive and feel the importance of family and the intense love between them again. Like this, I think that catastrophes can rather teach us a lesson of the close bonds we can keep even in bad situations.
Overall, through reminding myself of the movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ and relating it with ‘The Road’, I could learn about how the apocalyptic events can affect humans and what we should remember even in the harsh environment. I wonder what will happen next in the story ‘The Road’, I’m eager to find out. Will the man and the boy reach South and live happily ever after or will they have some other problems to get themselves through? I’ll figure out.
Come to think of it, this book, ‘The Road’ seems to have many apocalyptic aspects of the world similar to those of a movie called ‘The Day after Tomorrow’. Mainly concerned with the idea that they both contain events that lead to the end of the world and the fact that they show us the great feeling of love between son and father, it enabled me to be a lot closer with apocalyptic stories or Science Fictions.
To start with, relating ‘The Road’ with the movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ showed me the characteristics of apocalyptic stories and what they warn to the human beings. The basic storyline of ‘The Road’ is that a man and his son were left in the burnt village with ashes and dust all over them. They are trying to move South to avoid the freezing temperatures and survive with all their might. On their way heading South, they encounter hardships with keeping their wills tight and heading for their goals while looking at dead bodies stranded all over. The movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, as many people might already know, is also a disaster movie with the ice freezing and the temperature of the Earth going rapidly down. There are some survivors hoping for the Earth to recover to its original state, meanwhile they fighting for their sustenance, competing with each other for food and basic needs. According to these two stories we can figure out the impact that these incredible disasters could bring to humans. In these cases they only seek for their own survival, not even considering about the others in the same situation. The close bonds between the human beings weaken and the world becomes a place where peace could never be found. Humans begin to act like animals literally and compete for only their own benefits. It seems to show about the real humans and warn us about what we could do in unexpected situations. As many of you might have felt, this is bad, really bad. But there’s some light of hope even in the toughest environment.
What is the light? It’s probably the people whom you love. In ‘The Road’, the man really cares for his son, clutching him tight and giving his son Coca Cola and cocoa to drink. Also in ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, the main characters, a father who is searching through the snow to reach the civilians and the son longing for his dad to come and rescue them from the library worry and pray for each other. In the story they finally meet one another alive and feel the importance of family and the intense love between them again. Like this, I think that catastrophes can rather teach us a lesson of the close bonds we can keep even in bad situations.
Overall, through reminding myself of the movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ and relating it with ‘The Road’, I could learn about how the apocalyptic events can affect humans and what we should remember even in the harsh environment. I wonder what will happen next in the story ‘The Road’, I’m eager to find out. Will the man and the boy reach South and live happily ever after or will they have some other problems to get themselves through? I’ll figure out.
'The Road' vs 'Blindness'
Assignment 2 - 'writing about something the story remined me of'
When I was reading the first part of the book ‘The Road’, I had a lot of difficulties in understanding what it was about. I couldn’t understand the words and I couldn’t put the stories together into one. However, there was one thing that kept me from not giving up. It was the unknown familiarity of the story. I think the familiarity was because of the many apocalyptic movies and books I’ve seen. As I read the book, the story kept on overlapping with a book called ‘Blindness’ by Jose Saramago.
‘Blindness’ is an apocalyptic book. The problem starts when a man suddenly yells out that he cannot see in the middle of the street. Then, the people who had contact with him get the same symptoms. As more and more people start to get this virus, the government decides to lock them in a mental institution. The book is mainly about the story inside this mental institution and the events that happen after they escape and go back into the world.
I think the biggest relation between the two books is that people can’t see well. In the book ‘Blindness’, people with the virus cannot see anything but white waves. They (the infected people) say that they feel like they are swimming in a pool of milk. So, as the story goes on, people learn to conceive things by touching them and to keep balance without looking. Similarly, if you see on page 15, the man says, ‘The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening.’ At first, people who can’t see feel like they can’t do anything anymore. However, as time passes they get used to it and they can live with it. Although it is a common plot used by authors I always feel amazed and touched by human’s adapting abilities. I mean, you can just experience it by turning off the light and staring at the darkness for a few minutes. Your eyes adapt and you can see distant outlines of some objects around you.
Another thing that caught my eye was the strong relations that seemed to form or get stronger as the tragedy progresses. In ‘Blindness’, people were complete strangers at first. However, as people strived to survive, they became bonded together. They shared even the littlest piece of crackers and held hands so that they wouldn’t fall apart. Similarly, in ‘The Road’, the man and the boy had a very strong bond. If you see on page 29, the author narrates that the man knew ‘That the boy was all that stood between him and death.’ Not only that, the boy seems to care about the man if you see him trying to share with the man, Coca Cola and Cocoa. I think this is why I like by apocalyptic pieces so much. As I read the book, I could feel how important it is to keep strong bonds and form great relationships. Caring about one another and surviving altogether as a result of each other’s sacrifices, it seems so great and makes me feel thankful and happy that they all survived.
But, more than the two points I made above, the thing that most reminded me of the book ‘Blindness’ was the supermarket and the continuous mentioning of other survivors. In the book ‘Blindness’, there are a lot of scenes where people violently fight over food because there are so few. The scene that struck me the most was the scene where people were all fighting with each other in a supermarket. In this scene the woman who still has her sight, finds a storage room underground. She silently moves down and finds food to take to her people. But, before she leaves the room, she opens up a sausage to eat it because she was so hungry. However, starving people smelled the sausage and started running for her! It was so freaky, gross and violent but it was really interesting too. Anyways, the man in ‘The Road’ also says on page 42 that ‘It was for us and it will be for others and we don’t know who they will be and we can’t hear them coming. It’s not safe.’ Not only that, he keeps on saying things like ‘This was not a safe place. They could be seen from the road now it was day.’(p.5). At first, I couldn’t get what it means. From the earlier descriptions, there was supposed to be nothing but this man had a fear of something. However, from the page 28, ‘In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees.’ and page 46 ‘We’re not the first ones here.’ I was able to remember the striking scene from the ‘Blindness’ and understand that the fear the man had was directed at the other survivors.
As I read this story, I could find many connections between the two books. In some ways these books are very different. However, I found that after I related two books together, it made the book a little bit easier to understand. While reading the next part of the book, I will try to connect it more with other stories so that I can understand better.
When I was reading the first part of the book ‘The Road’, I had a lot of difficulties in understanding what it was about. I couldn’t understand the words and I couldn’t put the stories together into one. However, there was one thing that kept me from not giving up. It was the unknown familiarity of the story. I think the familiarity was because of the many apocalyptic movies and books I’ve seen. As I read the book, the story kept on overlapping with a book called ‘Blindness’ by Jose Saramago.
‘Blindness’ is an apocalyptic book. The problem starts when a man suddenly yells out that he cannot see in the middle of the street. Then, the people who had contact with him get the same symptoms. As more and more people start to get this virus, the government decides to lock them in a mental institution. The book is mainly about the story inside this mental institution and the events that happen after they escape and go back into the world.
I think the biggest relation between the two books is that people can’t see well. In the book ‘Blindness’, people with the virus cannot see anything but white waves. They (the infected people) say that they feel like they are swimming in a pool of milk. So, as the story goes on, people learn to conceive things by touching them and to keep balance without looking. Similarly, if you see on page 15, the man says, ‘The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening.’ At first, people who can’t see feel like they can’t do anything anymore. However, as time passes they get used to it and they can live with it. Although it is a common plot used by authors I always feel amazed and touched by human’s adapting abilities. I mean, you can just experience it by turning off the light and staring at the darkness for a few minutes. Your eyes adapt and you can see distant outlines of some objects around you.
Another thing that caught my eye was the strong relations that seemed to form or get stronger as the tragedy progresses. In ‘Blindness’, people were complete strangers at first. However, as people strived to survive, they became bonded together. They shared even the littlest piece of crackers and held hands so that they wouldn’t fall apart. Similarly, in ‘The Road’, the man and the boy had a very strong bond. If you see on page 29, the author narrates that the man knew ‘That the boy was all that stood between him and death.’ Not only that, the boy seems to care about the man if you see him trying to share with the man, Coca Cola and Cocoa. I think this is why I like by apocalyptic pieces so much. As I read the book, I could feel how important it is to keep strong bonds and form great relationships. Caring about one another and surviving altogether as a result of each other’s sacrifices, it seems so great and makes me feel thankful and happy that they all survived.
But, more than the two points I made above, the thing that most reminded me of the book ‘Blindness’ was the supermarket and the continuous mentioning of other survivors. In the book ‘Blindness’, there are a lot of scenes where people violently fight over food because there are so few. The scene that struck me the most was the scene where people were all fighting with each other in a supermarket. In this scene the woman who still has her sight, finds a storage room underground. She silently moves down and finds food to take to her people. But, before she leaves the room, she opens up a sausage to eat it because she was so hungry. However, starving people smelled the sausage and started running for her! It was so freaky, gross and violent but it was really interesting too. Anyways, the man in ‘The Road’ also says on page 42 that ‘It was for us and it will be for others and we don’t know who they will be and we can’t hear them coming. It’s not safe.’ Not only that, he keeps on saying things like ‘This was not a safe place. They could be seen from the road now it was day.’(p.5). At first, I couldn’t get what it means. From the earlier descriptions, there was supposed to be nothing but this man had a fear of something. However, from the page 28, ‘In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees.’ and page 46 ‘We’re not the first ones here.’ I was able to remember the striking scene from the ‘Blindness’ and understand that the fear the man had was directed at the other survivors.
As I read this story, I could find many connections between the two books. In some ways these books are very different. However, I found that after I related two books together, it made the book a little bit easier to understand. While reading the next part of the book, I will try to connect it more with other stories so that I can understand better.
Unique, Response to the Book, p.3-50
In this article, I'd like to discuss things I found interesting about this book. The first one to discuss is the structure of the novel, the second one is the personalities of the characters, and the last one is some motifs shown in the book.
1. Structure
The book mostly talks about the present, the man and the boy following the road to reach south. However, between those paragraphs showing the present, there appears some other paragraphs showing the man's (the protagonist's) mind and thoughts. They do not appear so often, but still, they come up a few times to give us some information about the past.
The novel starts with the story of the present.(p.3) The man wakes up, goes out, sees... And then, he thinks about the dream on a monster he had the night before. (p.3~4) After the talk about the dream, it goes back again to the story of the present.
Then, on page 12, a piece of memory of the man comes up. It's about the day he spent with his uncle on the lake. It's a seperate story from the main story, and it's giving a scene that can be contrasted with the ashed world of the present, emphasizing how the present world is horrible.
The next one is about the dreams the man has on his wife. (p.18~19) Through it, even if he doesn't really express his feelings about his wife directly, we can see that he really values the memory he has about his wife and he misses his wife.
* But here comes my question: reading the book, I became quite sure that the man, his wife and the boy are a blood-sharing family, and that the man loves and cares about the boy, but then why are they 'the man' and 'the boy', not 'the father' and 'the son'? The author is maybe doing that on purpose, to hide the bond between the father and the son? It just seems to me that the author is avoiding to make sure that the man's wife gave birth to the son, to emphasize that the boy does not remember anything about his mom.
Back to the topic. On the page 21, there comes another paragraph about the man's dream being so rich in color. Then on page 28, there's a paragraph on the first years of the post-apocalyptic world, full of refugees on the road. On page 32, there's another dream of his wife, whom he feels sorry to since he thinks he left his wife somewhere else alone to die. Then the man is busy living the real life, so that he doesn't have any thoughts to show us.
So, there's no strict structure the book has. It's just giving us paragraphs after paragraphs, mostly of the present life of the man and the boy. However, we shouldn't miss the paragraphs that give us some clues to figure the man's past and how the world was like before, and I expect to see them more throught the whole book.
2. Characters
1) The man
He's really cautious of the circumstances, so he keeps staring at the mirror to check his back, having guns near him and moving from one place to another. At the same time he misses his old days, wanting to see things from his childhood days and keep seeing his wife in his dream. Also, he's trying hard to carry out the role of father, by hugging the boy when it's cold and saying some words to give comfort to him when he knows it's not true.
2) The boy
I was actually surprised at this boy. He asks his papa whether he'll gonna die, he expects there to be no coke any more when he grabs a can for the first time, and he even got a promise from his father to drink the same with him, even if he knows that his father tried to save cocoa for him. On the other hand, he gets excited about sliding down the hill on the cart, seeing a waterfall and finding a toy in the cart, and get scared by a nightmare. He was sometimes like a grown-up and sometimes like an innocent child. That was why I was really sorry to him. Because the situation forces him to grow up, he has to be an adult when he must have the innocence of youth only.
3. Motif
There were three motifs I found: gray, the road, and the God.
The word 'gray' is the best word to describe the world, since it's covered with ash, the sky full of smoke and hardly a thing is alive.
The road is the path the man and the boy follow. Their destination is on the end of the road, and they keep following it. The road becomes the setting of the novel.
And the God. The man constantly questions the presence of God. It starts with the word 'godless' used to describe the world on page 4, and it's followed by a sentence, 'If he is not the word of God God never spoke.' on page 5 (* Well, I'm not sure whether 'he' means the boy or the man. Any of you guys got a clue?) .
And the man's feeling on the god is more clearly shown on page 11, when he asks 'Are you there? Will I see you at last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a hear? Damn you eternally have your soul?'. He is questioning the presence of God, or at least blaming God for not doing anything.
Beside these, on page 16, it says that a snowflake expired like the last host of christendom and we can say that it has a slight meaning of the end of christendom. On page 28, it refers refugees as 'creedless shells of men' and it shows that people lost their faith in god. The word god appears on page 31, yet it doesn't show the man's feeling about God.
-The End.
1. Structure
The book mostly talks about the present, the man and the boy following the road to reach south. However, between those paragraphs showing the present, there appears some other paragraphs showing the man's (the protagonist's) mind and thoughts. They do not appear so often, but still, they come up a few times to give us some information about the past.
The novel starts with the story of the present.(p.3) The man wakes up, goes out, sees... And then, he thinks about the dream on a monster he had the night before. (p.3~4) After the talk about the dream, it goes back again to the story of the present.
Then, on page 12, a piece of memory of the man comes up. It's about the day he spent with his uncle on the lake. It's a seperate story from the main story, and it's giving a scene that can be contrasted with the ashed world of the present, emphasizing how the present world is horrible.
The next one is about the dreams the man has on his wife. (p.18~19) Through it, even if he doesn't really express his feelings about his wife directly, we can see that he really values the memory he has about his wife and he misses his wife.
* But here comes my question: reading the book, I became quite sure that the man, his wife and the boy are a blood-sharing family, and that the man loves and cares about the boy, but then why are they 'the man' and 'the boy', not 'the father' and 'the son'? The author is maybe doing that on purpose, to hide the bond between the father and the son? It just seems to me that the author is avoiding to make sure that the man's wife gave birth to the son, to emphasize that the boy does not remember anything about his mom.
Back to the topic. On the page 21, there comes another paragraph about the man's dream being so rich in color. Then on page 28, there's a paragraph on the first years of the post-apocalyptic world, full of refugees on the road. On page 32, there's another dream of his wife, whom he feels sorry to since he thinks he left his wife somewhere else alone to die. Then the man is busy living the real life, so that he doesn't have any thoughts to show us.
So, there's no strict structure the book has. It's just giving us paragraphs after paragraphs, mostly of the present life of the man and the boy. However, we shouldn't miss the paragraphs that give us some clues to figure the man's past and how the world was like before, and I expect to see them more throught the whole book.
2. Characters
1) The man
He's really cautious of the circumstances, so he keeps staring at the mirror to check his back, having guns near him and moving from one place to another. At the same time he misses his old days, wanting to see things from his childhood days and keep seeing his wife in his dream. Also, he's trying hard to carry out the role of father, by hugging the boy when it's cold and saying some words to give comfort to him when he knows it's not true.
2) The boy
I was actually surprised at this boy. He asks his papa whether he'll gonna die, he expects there to be no coke any more when he grabs a can for the first time, and he even got a promise from his father to drink the same with him, even if he knows that his father tried to save cocoa for him. On the other hand, he gets excited about sliding down the hill on the cart, seeing a waterfall and finding a toy in the cart, and get scared by a nightmare. He was sometimes like a grown-up and sometimes like an innocent child. That was why I was really sorry to him. Because the situation forces him to grow up, he has to be an adult when he must have the innocence of youth only.
3. Motif
There were three motifs I found: gray, the road, and the God.
The word 'gray' is the best word to describe the world, since it's covered with ash, the sky full of smoke and hardly a thing is alive.
The road is the path the man and the boy follow. Their destination is on the end of the road, and they keep following it. The road becomes the setting of the novel.
And the God. The man constantly questions the presence of God. It starts with the word 'godless' used to describe the world on page 4, and it's followed by a sentence, 'If he is not the word of God God never spoke.' on page 5 (* Well, I'm not sure whether 'he' means the boy or the man. Any of you guys got a clue?) .
And the man's feeling on the god is more clearly shown on page 11, when he asks 'Are you there? Will I see you at last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a hear? Damn you eternally have your soul?'. He is questioning the presence of God, or at least blaming God for not doing anything.
Beside these, on page 16, it says that a snowflake expired like the last host of christendom and we can say that it has a slight meaning of the end of christendom. On page 28, it refers refugees as 'creedless shells of men' and it shows that people lost their faith in god. The word god appears on page 31, yet it doesn't show the man's feeling about God.
-The End.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Looking back my own experience after this reading.
When I started to read this book, I didn’t even know what to do. There were so many new words that I can’t look for every single word. Also the background and plots were hard to draw in my head. When I checked the Gifted Class The Road Blog to see what I should do for the assignment, I was little bit worried because I had some problems with understanding the details of the book. Rather than trying to focus on every little detail, I tried to feel the overall mood of the story. I thought it would be better to find the background atmosphere and get to know about the characters. While I was reading the part from page 3 to 50, I could find some information about the man and the boy. The man is the boy’s father and there’s almost nothing alive except them. Furthermore, it seems there had been a disaster or something so that everything was ruined. In this situation, the man and the boy spend all the time together. They walk along the road, looking for food, sleep outside and rely on each other. Of course the whole mood is very serious and nervous, I wanted to focus more on the relationship between the man and the boy than the events. I liked the man trying to take great care of his son during the whole time. He often asked his son if he was okay, and tried to give as many things as he could to his son. That reminded me of my father. Maybe this would be little bit out of the story, but I wanted to tell you how similar to the man my father is. When I was only 8, I remember, I often went to fishing with my father. We used to spend whole night at the fishing spot. One day, suddenly it started to rain. My father quickly built a tent and we spend the night in the tent listening to the raindrops. I remember it was the most scary, cold, but sweet, warm, and precious memory. It was very cold because of the weather, I felt warm in my fathers protection. I was so young and there was nobody to believe but my father. He gave me all the clothes and blankets even though he had been cold too. Also, he kept asking me if I were cold, hungry, sleepy, scary, and okay just like the man did to his son. Although the situation and the mood are slightly different from the book, I could notice that all fathers are the same. They try their best to do everything if it is for their kids. If I were in that situation, (of course I do no really want to be) I would believe my father and rely on him a lot. No matter how hard time it would be, I will be happy if I am with him. Just being with him, it makes me feel comfortable and relaxed. While I was reading the book, I couldn’t really think of any similar experience to that in the story because it is too serious and apocalyptic story. However, when I finished reading the part, somehow I felt warm as if the man was my father. And it reminded me of my experience in my childhood. I don’t know if there is someone who thinks that it’s little bit off the track to focus on the relation between father and child, but I think it’s also important to think about the character’s relationship and their feelings to each other. This was what I felt about the man and the son while reading the part up to page 50.
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