In the book The Road I found it
interesting when the man and boy came across an individual being struck by
lightening. When the father and son saw the man being struck, the father and
son did not try to help the struggling man. This particular event
proposed many questions to me. The father must have had specific intentions in
his choice of not wanting to help this man being struck by lightening. On page
49 the text states, "Can't we help him? Papa? No. We can’t help him... Can’t
we help him Papa? No. We can’t help him. There's nothing to be done for
him"(McCarthy 49). This quote stuck out to me compared to the rest. I was
surprised after reading this that the father did not try to help the man being
struck. Being that the father is potentially sick, I thought he would have more
of a heart to helping the other people around him. Especially in their case
where there are not any other humans around them on the road.
One reason that the father did not want to help
the man is that he wanted to teach his son about trust. On the journey that
they are on, trusting an individual could be the matters between life and
death. The father wants to make sure the boy understands not to put anyone
else's needs before his own. The father is trying to prepare his son to live on
his own after he passes away. The father seems knowledgeable and very set on
his decision to not help the struggling man. The other potential reason the
father did not want to help the man is because he did not want to risk another
individual replacing his status with his son. Maybe the father knows he is
soon going to pass away and that if he helped the individual being struck then
he would have stuck around and grown close to his son. Maybe the father did not
want to risk another man taking his spot after he passes.
I completely agree with the points you make here. In the world the boy and man live in, trust between the two of them is essential because the two of them are all they have for each other. This serves as a great lesson for the boy to trust his elders' knowledge because they know much more than he does. When children are at a young age, they generally believe they know everything and always aim to prove others wrong. In this case, the boy is learning a key necessity in life: trust. When his father tells him they cannot help him the boy is very sad at first. But after this is said a few times, the boy realizes there is no way they can help him, so he listens to his father and turns his back on him. This may foreshadow other events in the story because learning to turn your back on rough situations is an important trait of which the boy is going to need to develop. Throughout the early stages of the book, there have been many graphic descriptions and there will most likely be many more to come in the upcoming chapters. I believe that developing trust and learning to turn his back on tough encounters will benefit the boy in later stages of the novel.
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