And so the story continues, as the man and his son try to survive their lonely journey one step at a time. For a while, everything was the same, the little boy and the man walking along the road and checking how close they were from the gap. They found a river, and walked by it for some time, until they finally got to a waterfall. The man allowed his son to swim in the river pond, and he decided to dive too. It was freezing cold, but he still enjoyed feeling the beating of the water in his back. They came out shivering. Afterwards, the man found some mushrooms and they ate in front of a fire. Since the place was so good, the man was scared that there would be other people there, so even though the boy wanted to stay near the waterfall, they had to leave in the morning.
Even though some parts of the story are expected, because of the predictability of their lifestyle, some parts of the story caught me by surprise. McCarthy very cleverly discusses the lack of states in the country, by making it part of a conversation between father and son. Later along the road, they found a bridge crossing the river, which had a truck that had been "jackknifed" in it. (43) The man has to get inside to search for useful things, but it is apparent that someone has been there before. It is attached to a trailer, which surprisingly is filled with dead bodies.
They continue on, and for the first time in the story, they directly encounter another human being. It is a man who looks really bad, burned from head to toe, with almost no hair and clothes in terrible condition. The man and the son follow him, until the other man can't take it anymore and has to sit down on the road. Even though the boy cries for them to help him out, the father very sadly says that it is either them or him.
Another topic that was talked about a lot was the boy's mother. The man has a flashback, in which the lights go out in his house and his wife asks him what's wrong, and another in which the boy's birth is described. We finally know why woman is not with her husband and son, as she killed herself. "She would do it with a flake of obsidian. He'd taught her himself. Sharper than steel." (58) While thinking this, the man was probably feeling very bad about teaching her a way to kill herself. In the past, the man and the woman had had arguments about what was better, killing themselves or letting themselves be killed, but now that the man was alone with his son, he would do anything to keep them both alive. Anyway, the son had expressed his desire to kill himself to be with his mother, which greatly hurt his father.
The last thing I read was when the man woke up from his sleep and realized that a pack of men were coming towards him with rifles in their hands, and he rushed his son to wake up and they ran off together as fast as they could. We'll see what happens next.
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