The Road Blog 9

“They crawled slowly through the leaves toward what looked like lower ground. He lay listening, holding the boy. He could hear them in the road talking. Voice of a woman. Then he heard them in the dry leaves. He took the boy's hand and pushed
the revolver into it. Take it, he whispered. Take it. The boy was terrified. He put his arm around him and held him. His body so thin. Dont be afraid, he said. If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? Shh. No crying. Do you hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quick and hard. Do you understand? Stop crying. Do you understand?” (57-58).

During this scene, the man and his son went into a large house that was once lavish. After the father had insisted opening the latch, the son was afraid and kept on begging to leave. Despite the son’s resistance the father had finally broke in, but all he found was people all laying in the dark with amputated arms and legs. In fact, the house was basically a slaughter house – everyone in the locked room was naked and afraid. When a man called for help the father only ran and grabbed his son to quickly escape the house and it finally dawned on him that the box in front of the road is used to trap everyone inside the padlock. After hiding in behind the bushes the father tells the son to get his gun ready and to swiftly commit suicide when needed. They see four men and two women returning to the house. Obviously these four men and two women have an important role – they were people whom trapped all those inside the house, for one reason – as a food source since they’re cannibals. The father could hear the screeching as the two escaped from the house. It seems like the son has some sense of evil and good because whenever he feels like he’s near something negative he warns his father. His son is used to foreshadow the future of the novel because the cannibals are most likely the main antagonist of the story. These cannibals don’t care about others since they strive to survive by eating other humans without acknowledging that their humans too.

This shows inequality because clearly the cannibals overpower every other character. Even the protagonists – the father and son were close to death, these cannibals will stop at nothing until they acquire their food. When they catch their food they torture them by letting them starve to death instead of immediately putting them out of their misery. Those who are caught are hopeless – they never had a chance to survive once they were caught inside the padlock. There’s truly no superior being in the world, however, the cannibal groups attack those who they deem as inferior (obviously if they wouldn’t be able to defeat those who are stronger). Again, in present day this can be part of racism – certain racial groups who believe that they’re superior to others and that they have the right to terrorize the inferior group. During the Holocaust, Adolph Hitler had captured and basically massacred Jews because he felt that they were inferior, not only this, but he also did this to gays, disabled, etc. This shows human fear towards those who poses danger to others. We as people tend to brand people in prison as outcast and fear them especially if they murdered. As humans we put our lives first above all else.