Happy Past With Coca-Cola

             Although there are many events that occur in The Road, the Coca-Cola scene was one that impacted me the most as the reader. A father and son are on a journey to the south, which is their only option to survive. As they are walking, which they constantly do to live, they come across an abandoned supermarket. As usual in this run down society, everything is old and deteriorating. Somehow, a miracle occurs and the father finds a can of Coca-Cola in an old vending machine.
       
          By the door were two soft drink machines that had been tilted over into the floor and opened with a prybar. Coins everywhere in the ash. He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at the Coca-Cola (McCarthy 23).

            Is it a coincidence that they came across this one last can of Coca-Cola? The father gave his son the last can of soda. The boy was never exposed to such drinks and did not know what it was. As usual, the boy listened to the father when he was told to drink it. This scene stood out to me, as the reader, because I can relate to the feeling of taking my first sip of Coca-Cola. At first it is strange because of the fizzing and bubbling, but one you get past that, the amazing flavor hits you.

          This scene especially stuck out to me because the father wanted the boy to drink all of it. This last can of Coca-Cola could symbolize happiness and hope. The father could have wanted the boy to experience happiness, but it could also represent the father's past. This could possibly be a way for the father to give something back to his son because the boy had not been able to settle in one place since he was a young child. It is possible that this represents hope because somehow they got the very last can of the soda. Maybe it is a symbol that there is hope and that life  will get better for them from that moment forward.

Will it get better for this father and son?

Could the Coca-Cola scene foreshadow a new and happy future or could it be the father's way of giving the boy happiness before they die?

The Fatal Tomato

A moment that truly stood out for me in the The Road is when The Man declined to take a can of home canned tomatoes. “In the pantry were three jars of homecanned tomatoes. He blew the dust from the lids and studied them. Someone before him had not trusted them and in the end neither did he and he walked out…” (McCarthy 22) This seemed very peculiar to me. In a society, or lack thereof, where cannibalism is a (while maybe not accepted), fairly common practice, The Man declines to take the tomatoes. I wonder why. The first thing that comes to mind is that maybe he is afraid the tomatoes have gone bad, they might not have been sealed properly. Though I think the more probable reason he didn’t take the tomatoes was that he was afraid they were poisoned or tainted. His fear of other humans is greater than his fear of starvation. He would rather take his chances with the elements of mother nature, than with the creatures she created.

A question one might ask is, why would anyone bother poisoning food? I don’t know why, but I think it is a reasonable assumption that The Man is not picky, he is afraid. Why else would he decline much needed vitamins and food? A possible reasoning for poisoned food would be that the previous inhabitants of the house was trying to protect themselves from scavengers like The Man.

All of this leads us to a conclusion that while The Man and Boy are desperate, they are not yet willing to needlessly sacrifice their lives for one more meal.