The Road Blog 8

“Three nights later in the foothills of the eastern mountains he woke in the darkness to
hear something coming. He lay with his hands at either side of him. The ground was
trembling. It was coming toward them.
Papa? The boy said. Papa?
Shh. It's okay.
What is it, Papa?
It neared, growing louder. Everything trembling. Then it passed beneath them like
an underground train and drew away into the night and was gone. The boy clung to
him crying, his head buried against his chest. Shh. It's all right.
I'm so scared.
I know. It's all right. It's gone.
What was it, Papa?
It was an earthquake. It's gone now. We're all right. Shh” (14).

As the two – father and son continue to travel along their journey; they stop at pit stops in order to acquire more supplies. While doing so, they arrive at Georgia or what is left of it anyways; during their visit to this state they visit their old house. For some reason the son is frightened to go in suggesting that something must have happened in the past. Though, the father continues on and reminisces about the past – his old house. Three days later the two experience an earthquake and during this section the novel explains that many people attempted to find refuge. Evidently, the child is scared during the earthquake demonstrating that he has never been through one ever, but his father persuades him that everything will be okay. However, in context earthquakes are dangerous and sustains damages throughout the area – if the trembling was growing louder that means this earthquake was pretty dangerous. Clearly the father is doing anything he can to keep his son alive, under no circumstances does he want his son to die – this shows the fatherly love surrounding the two. It’s reasonable since the child is probably the only one left in their family and the only one that can keep his hope and dreams alive.

Earthquakes are devastating and show the inequality of man vs. nature. Most of the time nature prevails because it’s basically unpredictable – no one can truly predict when natural disasters will occur and how much damage will be sustained. Humans are unequal when it comes to fighting nature, sure we can fight against most other things such as: other humans, animals, war, etc. But the fact is, even if we can stop some damage from earthquakes there will always be some form of damage made. Yet the real question is what causes these natural disasters? Humans are part of the cause by destroying the environment. In current day society more earthquakes are occurring than it did in the past, not to mention the hurricanes and tsunamis which all destroy people’s homes and causes suffering. The man’s son demonstrates the terror caused by these disasters – people should be afraid of the damages. As a result, many people tend to buy supplies and stock up on their storage. People even turn towards shelters to protect their families. The fact is, against nature we’re powerless and there’s no one in the world that can fight against a hurricane since they’d just be shred to pieces. Against nature we’re useless because it’s unpredictable and there’s no way we’d be superior in a world we live in which is full of nature.