The Road Blog 10

“They'd no way to answer the question. He wiped his nose with the back of his
wrist and stood waiting. He had no shoes at all and his feet were wrapped in rags
and cardboard tied with green twine and any number of layers of vile clothing
showed through the tears and holes in it. Of a sudden he seemed to wilt even further.
He leaned on his cane and lowered himself into the road where he sat among the
ashes with one hand over his head. He looked like a pile of rags fallen off a cart.
They came forward and stood looking down at him. Sir? the man said. Sir?” (83).

During this scene the father stalks an old man in order to determine whether or not he’s a decoy to ambush them. Once they catch the old man, the son tells his father to give the old man food which he eventually does. The old mean reveals his name (though not really his name) to be Ely. In order to protect himself from the cannibals he states that he tells people he’s 90 years old as a resort to avoid being hunted and eaten. Ely seems to neglect the idea of there being a God and that he doesn’t want to admit anything besides that the world is coming to an end. Since the father disagrees with Ely’s view and the way that he doesn’t agree with his son being a God, he firmly tells him to leave. However, it seems like the father is beginning to worsen as he continues coughing – it seems like his journey maybe coming to an end soon as he’s already old and he’s been ill from malnutrition.

Inequality is shown among the old in The Road, for example, Ely was easily overtaken by a weakened old man and a young boy. Also, the father is also beginning to lose his ground – he’s become ill and weakened to the point that he may not be able to survive any longer. In this world we usually see old people as weak and fragile – we create elderly home to throw them away. When individuals see old people working, they claim that they’re hogging up job opportunities for a younger generation; however, one doesn’t stop to think why they’re still working. As human beings we don’t treat the elderly with respect. People see them as old and immediately disregards whether or not they provided anything to society. In fact they have more knowledge than most people because of the events and experiences they’ve been through throughout their lives. However, since they’re old, people tend to see them as weak, useless, and eventually they’ll be dead. Compared to younger generations of people the elderly are weaker because they can sustain their strength like they could when they were younger; thus they lose to the younger generation who (most) see elderly people as useless. They’re ‘unequal’ to those who are healthier.