Key Episodes

- coming across the man who has been struck by lightening (pp. 50-53)
Within this section of the book, the man and boy encounter a man who has been struck by lighting along the road, it's the first time the audience meet someone else from the road. The man is described as being "as burntlooking as the country" we already know the country is in a dreadful state, having been ravaged by fires, so it hints towards the dire state which the man is in.
The reaction of the man when he saw the others tells us about the attitude of people towards eachother "As they passed he looked down. As if he'd done something wrong." this quote shows that the man fears the others, he doesn't want to provoke them by getting direct eye contact, getting the audienced to question what others on the road are like.
The father tells his son they can't help the man "I'm sorry for what has happened to him but we can't fix him" the father repeats sentences similar to this over and over to the boy, in an attempt to harden him to the world and make him realise not everyone can be helped. I also think he repeats it in attempt to justify that they couldn't have helped. I think the father feels bad about not helping the man, and also feels anger towards his guilt, so he casts of the last thing he has that reminds him of his old life, his walet and left it and all it's conents "Some money, credit cards. His driver's license. A picture of his wife." These are items that remind him of a life that he's lost, in that life he would have felt guilt for not helping that man, but in this life he casts of the guilt as he can't help the man. It's also listed in the things that are most significant/important, money reperesenting normalicy, his driver's license showing who he is, a form of identification and finally, a photo of his wife, the woman he married and who in turn abandoned him. He abandons his wallet in the middle of the road, like his wife abandoned him and also as normalicy and his life did.

- shooting the 'roadrat' (pp. 62-69)
In pages 62 - 69, the man and boy encounter the bad people, who from the moment they are introduced we know they are to be feared. McCarthy writes "They came shuffling though the ash casting their hooded heads from side to side." This is not the usual way people walk, they are searching for something. The fact they wear hoods also hints towards them being feared, as symbolically those who wear hoods are hiding something, such as in the case of cult groups like the KKK in 1960's America, they wore hoods to hide their identity when hunting down black Americans, these people wear hoods when hunting people to eat as they no longer have an identitiy.
The boy and man run leaving their stuff behind, "He had the pistol in his hand. He couldn't even remember taking it from his belt" showing he is acting by instinct, like an animal  in danger. This demonstrates what people have been reduced to, hiding from and killing one another.
A man comes over to where they are hiding, and the father immediately reacts by threatening him. The other man talks less formally, using words such as "I aint goin nowheres" the writer choses to give him a more basic dialect to show the difference between him and the man and boy. The more basic tounge hints towards him being less educated and informed, it shows him to be more savage in the way he talks, like he is to be blunt thick and stupid, following others for food, as if he barely has a mind of his own.
The man threatens to shoot the other man, but he calls his bluff, claiming he wouldn't. They argue for a short while, until the other man grabs the boy, so the man automatically shoots him. McCarthy doesn't even write about the man thinking about shooting him, but he does like a defensive action. This part shows how at the end we are all brought back to our basic survival instincts.
The man shoots the roadrat in the head, which is symbolic in the way that in most horror films it's taken as a general rule that the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot them in the head, the roadrat is like a zombie as he eats human flesh to survive.
At the end of this key episode, the man places the boy on his shoulders and runs away from the bad people. The boy is described as "clutching his forehead, covered with gore and as mute as a stone." Gore is a word used in horror books, to show bits of human flesh that are beyond reconginising, it's a disgusting, not descript word. 


- finding the cellar of naked and mutilated people (pp. 112-121)
In this key episode of the book, the man and boy are starving, when they come across a stately home. When they walk up to the house, it's written "Chattel slaves had once trod these boards bearing food and drink on silver trays" to be a chattel slave means to be owned by the slave owner, to be their property, to know there were once slaves their forshadows what they are find. The contrast between the chattel slave and the silver trays shows the greed of the owners that once lived their, the contrast between the hardship of the slaves, and the cruetly carried out by the slave owners, which forshadows the cruelty of the 'bad people' towards the people in the cellar.
In this chapter, McCarthy also describes the "smell of mold and excrement" this smell should have alerted the man to the fact that there are people living there, as an old house wouldn't smell like excrement. As the man missed such an obvious thing, it shows how hungry he is, and how desperate he must be. Another rather obvious clue to show there are people already living there is the "gray trampled grass", showing that there is people there, as the snow is freshly fallen. Other clues to other people being there were the "trash piled everywhere", the padlock on the cellar, and the piles of clothes. Having missed there clues, it shows the mans obliviousness, as he key focus was food, part of me though feels that the man  must have noticed, and just ignored these signs, as he was so desperate, knowing without food they'd die anyway.
The boy though had picked up on these signs, and unlike his dad, decided that they were in danger. The boy wanted to leave "Papa, the boy said. We should go. Papa." It's significant that the second "Papa." has a full stop after it, where I'd expect to see a question mark, as in the boy questioning whether or not his father heard him, but it instead has a fullstop, as if he is telling his father they should leave. The boy is so scared "he was almost in tears" showing he is near hysterical about the whole thing. The boy claims "I'm not hungry, Papa. I'm not." The boy is lying to his father in a desperate bid to get him to leave. The fact that they boy sensed these things, or chose not to ignore them shows that he's being more careful than his father. Also, they way that the Father ignored the boys fears, or thought them wrong shows that he doesn't quite trust the judgement of the boy, though it turns out to be right.
In the hall "in one corner of the room was a great heap of clothing. Clothes and shoes. Belts. Coats. Blankers and old sleeping bags." These are all the items the people in the cellar, and those before them would have valued the most. It's odd that the man doesn't question why they are there, and to the audience it's pretty obvious that they belong to people who are dead, though the audience cannot comprehend what actually happened to them.
As they make their way into the cellar, they describe what they can see starting with simple description such as "part of a stone wall. Clay floor. A mattress darkly stained." ending with the descriptive sentences becoming longer and more detailed "Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, sheilding their faces with their hands." McCarthy lengths the descriptive sentences and adds comma's into them to reperesent the mans eyes adjusting to the light in the basement, the sentences get more descriptive as his eyes adjust due to the fact of him being able to see more.
In the book, after seeing the sight at the bottom of the stairs the man reacts "Christ, he said. Oh Christ." which is a line said in a horror movie, when the good guys looking down at all the victims. McCarthy does this, as really his books are mere rip off's of 70's B movies, in the way that the bad guys commit acts of cannibalism, where they eat those weaker than themselves.


- the baby on the spit (pp. 210-215)
In these pages, the boy and man see a pregnant woman and two men. The man decides to go and see what they're doing and who they are, whereas the boy does not want to. "The wooden and the true" <---- I'm not sure what this means, but I shall hazzard a guess it's something to do with the smoke of the fire?
The man describes "the leaves were soft from the recent rains and quiet underfoot" this is an unsually large amount of description for the man, hinting at the slowing of time, building up to an eventual event. He then goes on to describe "The small dirty face wide with fear." when talking about the boy, he put it in one sentence as if it's a statement of something that usually happens when they find themselves in any situtation he's not used to. It's also an odd what to describe a child's face when it's filled with fear, it's as if the word "dirty" taints him. Through out this part it seems as if the man is more desperate to get to the food than the boy, the boy seems more cautious.
Though, the man is so cautious to exposing his son to physical dangers, that he forgot about the mental ones. The boy had been exposed to the image of a "charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit", which isn't something you'd want your child to see. What's also key is the McCarthy writes this statement, as if it's matter of fact, also his use of punctuation or lack of it . I'd have expected to see commas but I don't, he writes it in a long descriptive list kind of fashion.
Having saw this, the man picks the boy up and they run for the toas with the man whispering "I'm sorry" I think he's appologising for not listening to the boys fears and carrying on regardless. I also think his appology could be linked to what he said in earlier of chapters of "you forget what you want to remember, and remember what you want to forget" he knows the image of the baby, dead and cooking on a spit will haunt the boy forever, this idea is repeated when the man wonders "if he'd ever speak again" or if this image had irrevertably damaged the boy?
Towards the end of this section, we are given a glimpse of how much it has effected the boy"Okay. Do you want to ride in the cart? - It's okay. - Why don't you ride for a while? - I don't want to. It's okay." It's as if the boys childhood has completely left him, something that was hinted at happening in an earlier chapter when he talks about how the boy used to pick things up from the road but no longer did, it shows how this incident has changed the boys view of the world. It also shows he's grown up when he says "I don't want to. It's okay." as if he's reasurring his dad that it's okay that he doesn't want to ride in the cart, he's growing up and that's good.


- getting to the shore (pp. 227 - 230)
In the beggining of this section, the man and boy have just stopped at a house for a few days to get their energy back. They gather new supplies and when they leave they talk "We did good, didn't we Papa? he said. Yes we did" I really like this quote in the way that it's a loving exchange, that fills me with hope, having read just this quote and not all of this book, it could be talking about anything that they've done together, even something as simple as flying a kite. It's amazing in the way it's merely the boy seeking his fathers approval, like anyother boy his age. This quote shows that even in a dead world, small elements of normalicy can survive. It shows hope that things can get better and not all is bad.
In this section, he also talks of how "his hand pushed over his head against the blackness. Like a man waking in a grave." Firstly, he talks about the darkness as if it's a force which leaves him defenseless, which essentially it is, because at night they have both sight and warmth taken from them. Secondly, he talks of men waking from graves reiniforcing the idea of McCarthy's book being merely based around bad 70's B movies, which the main of focus of them were zombies. The man and boy are like zombies in the way they seem to wander with the main aim to find food, that's all they survive for. This idea is also reinforced within the sentence "The dull green antique coppers spilled from out the tills of their eyesockets onto the stained and rotted coffin floor" this idea reinforces the zombie one as it talks about rotting of things and flesh. It also talks of the how they eyes have rotted away, which are described to be windows to the soul, therefore leaving the bodies without something that makes them human?
"He looked at the boy. He could see the dispointment on his face. I'm sorry it's not blue, he said. That's okay said the boy." This is where they've reached the sea, and it's not like they expected. The man feels responsible for it not being blue, knowing he lead the boy to believe it would be, inspired false hope within him. Where the boy says "It's okay" it sounds as if he is actually saying it's not your fault, because he can tell in some odd way that the man blames himself for the lack of blue.


- the theft of the man and boy's belongings (pp. 270-278)
In this section of the book, someone steals the man and boys belongings, it impacts the man and boys relationship because of the actions the man choses to take against the thief. The man takes all the theif's stuff, and when he begs him not to, the man replies with "I'm going to leave you the way you left us." the theif left them with nothing, he took all their supplies and left them to die, the man intend to do the same thing. This section hints towards the man losing his humanity, something that's already been hinted towards in prior chapters.