The Road vs. Others

Group assignment #1: Compare The Road  to other post-apocalyptic books/movies

I am nowhere near as educated about this topic as some of my group members are. I’ve seen 2012, the Day After Tomorrow, I am Legend, the Book of Eli, etc and I read a series that would fit into that group when I was younger. But those are basically what I’m comparing the Road to.

The Road is different from all of those movies because of how it’s timed. At the beginning of the book, the reader isn’t dropped into mass chaos. There is no major crisis that the characters are dealing with. The world has already ended and now the only issue is survival. Despite it being a transient world, this book had a feeling of calm. Everything seemed to have its place. This is a weird concept, but that’s what it felt like. The dead people had been dead for a while, the cannibals had a system worked out and the boy and his dad knew what they were doing. They had settled into this routine from years of walking on the road.

Also this book is different because the reader doesn’t know what caused this grey state. There was no accident, natural disaster, zombie attack, massive nuclear/chemical warfare, or anything like that, unlike most other post-apocalyptic books/movies.

It’s never specifically stated why the Earth is so desolate and hopeless. That was different for me. I kept thinking that the dad would have a flashback, to the day that everything went crazy. I was waiting and waiting for that to happen…it never did. For all I know the Earth could have just died, getting more and more barren to the point where there weren’t enough resources to sustain everyone. Whatever the case, that aspect of the book is completely left up to the reader’s imagination. 

The Road, Part 2

Would I trust the stranger at the end of the book?

Surprisingly, The Road  has a happy ending. Well, as happy an ending as you could have in a post-apocalyptic world where there seems to be more evil than good. Even though the father dies, the boy is essentially rescued by some random man and taken to live with him and his family. That’s nice…and completely unrealistic. The author lets us know that they’re good and won’t cause any harm to the boy, but if I were in his or his dad’s shoes, I wouldn’t be so easily convinced.

The boy is still young. Despite the circumstances, his dad has made sure that he’s maintained a bit of his innocence. When the man finds him he’s a little wary, but after a few minutes he’s convinced that they’re “carrying the fire” as well, and he has no problem trusting him. This is dangerous. People lie, and there’s no evidence to say that the man wasn’t just putting on a ruse for the boy. His real intent could have been to cause harm.

Looking at it from the dad’s perspective, I couldn’t leave my child in that world without a guaranteed protector. When the dad is dying, the son's safety isn’t ensured at all. Maybe the dad hopes that he’ll be able to take care of himself, or hopes that there will be someone to help him, but he isn’t sure. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t have my child face the unknown alone. Despite being brought up in a world where survival is the only task, the boy is in no shape to live on his own. We’ve estimated the boy’s age to be around 8ish, and despite all his prior experience he’s just not ready. Yeah, he has the gun, but it only has one bullet. That means that as soon as he encounters an army or even just one person who’s bigger and stronger than him (of which there are probably tons, the kid is tiny), he’s done for. I couldn’t leave my child to that fate.

Maybe this is wishful thinking. I don’t know if I would actually have the strength to shoot my own child. But if the situation called for it, I hope I would be able to make the right decision despite the limited options. Plus, I don’t necessarily believe that death is “the end”. I don’t truly believe that there’s a heaven/hell or anything else…but there could be. And even though that’s as much an unknown as leaving the boy alive is, presumably we’d be facing it(whatever it is) together. 

Suicide on The Road

Would you kill yourself if you were in the position as the dad and the boy?

Hell no. I’ve been preparing for an apocalypse all my life. I’d grab my bow and head out to try and survive in the new world. Okay that’s a bit ambitious…but I’d probably be too curious to kill myself. Despite the hardships, I’d want to keep walking on the road, in hopes of finding something better. Anything that would remotely resembled my safe old world, or a part of the new world that’s better than the old one was. I think that’s the force that keeps our two characters going. The burden of “carrying the fire” and being some of the only “good guys” left  is their motivation for living. They walk in order to be a part of the new world that’s still sane.

They can do it, but I may not be able to. I am not a patient person, I don’t like struggling, and I might give up before I found what I was looking for. The world the father and son are living in is dull. It’s not an exciting place where there are shootouts and showdowns and every moment is spent fighting off some evil force. It’s boring. They’re cold and hungry all the time. Everything around them is grey. That’s not a life. In that case maybe I’d kill myself just for something else. I might do it just to begin a new adventure into the afterlife.

Dear Parents,

I wonder sometimes about how I ended up with such different views from you two. It could just be the times. All the youngsters seem to be more liberal these days. Or not. I could have ended up this way regardless of the time period. I wasn’t raised to think so freely, but this happened anyway. My parents haven’t noticed. They have lost me. Some days I see that as a bad thing, but today is not one of those days. I am so far away, but I like where I am and I won’t apologize for it.

Maybe there wasn’t a simple way to prevent this. But to all the other parents…all I have to say is know your children. You don’t have to understand them and you don’t have to be their best friends. Just know them. Know how they are, what they do, and their quirks. Know them and learn to trust them. If you care and if you’re a decent person and if you notice things you’ll pretty much raise them well. Hopefully they won’t be too wild (but no promises).

Civics

People should be honest. This doesn’t mean blurting out everything that comes to mind, or being so brutally honest to the point where it’s hurtful. It means being true. This idea seems like it should be simple. Sometimes it is. But often honesty gets passed over in an attempt to adhere to social norms. I hate that. I hate these little games we play with each other just because it’s viewed as the proper thing to do. There are so many people who put up a front everyday. Why?

One of the things that bothered me in Ordinary People is the sense of fake. In the charming world of Lake Forest everything has to be in good taste. Everything has to be perfect. That’s not how life works but so many people try to pretend that it does. The dinner party scene angered me the most. Why should it matter if the Cal mentioned that Conrad is seeing Dr. Berger? It shouldn’t. Somehow, we’ve adopted this twisted idea that not having every single detail of your life precisely in order is a bad thing. Well it’s not. It’s okay to be a little bit crazy. We all have skeletons in our closets.

Is Poverty a Choice?

I see the argument. I can completely understand how some people would view poverty as a choice. In some cases, I would even agree with that idea. There are definitely people who make conscious decisions to remain in poverty. But this is the exception, not the rule.

The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” method doesn’t always work. There is only so much a person can do when the odds are already unbelievably stacked against them.

The argument that the drug dealer or the homeless man on the corner are choosing poverty because they don’t go out to get a real job is flawed. They’re not choosing poverty; they’re choosing to eat. They’re doing the only thing that they know in order to make money. What we may consider to be bad choices are simply things they have to do daily in order to survive. I will not condemn those people as “choosing poverty” just because they don’t have the resources, support, or knowledge necessary to change their lives. 

Integration

Integration in America is a myth. Regardless of if people want it or not, we don’t have it. Just look at Chicago. Each ethnic group has it’s own little neighborhood that they’re expected to fall into. Anything else would be unacceptable. I understand that people want to get together based on aspects of their culture, but I think in some cases it hurts our society. The separation between the North Side and the South Side has been going on for years. The differences between the two neighborhoods are something shocking. Someone who is not from Chicago could see the two neighborhoods and think that they are entirely different cities. It’s hard for most people to realize how different they are because they don’t know. They remain in their own little sphere and never see anything else. What’s the farthest North or South you travel everyday? If the answer is to Whitney Young, then we have a problem.

It’s also obvious that our society isn’t integrated because of the stereotypes. I think that if we were truly integrated they would not exist. Stereotypes are created to easily define and generalize what we don’t know. If our society weren’t so separate there would be less of the unknown and less of the stereotypes.

I wonder if it’s a subconscious thing. I wonder if we gravitate towards people most like us because we assume that they understand and we feel comfortable with them. It could be an issue of protection. The idea that there’s safety in numbers and if you are around people who are just like you, they’ll help you out if the situation calls for it.Maybe we’re all so separate because of fear. Or maybe we’re still so separate because people continue to harbor supremacist ideas, and therefore make no attempt to integrate.

There are exceptions to this rule. There are a few wonderful places, like Whitney Young where integration is happening. We are lucky to attend a school where people come from all around the city. There are still people who don’t use this to their advantage. Sometimes we still separate ourselves and put up these barriers. I hate that. I want integration. I don’t want to integrate with people who don’t see me as their equal. I agree with Malcolm X that this would be a waste of time. Fortunately, I do not believe that all white people are devils. There are some genuinely good people out there, regardless of their race. Those are the ones I want to integrate with.