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The old man says, "I was always on the road." Does this mean he was a transcient before the devastation? Why would this matter?
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." Explain this quote, then tell me what you think about it.
"There is no God and we are his prophets." What? What does this mean?
"Where men can't live gods fare no better." Explain this one...
The old man thinks the boy will "get over" believing in God. What do you think, and why?
"I am going to die," he said. "Tell me how I am to do that." What does the man mean? What are the possible answers?
The boy forgets to turn off the valve for their make-shift stove. What do we learn about the characters from the exchange that takes place concerning this oversight?
On p. 177 in my book, there is a description of the coastal plains. Compared with your experience of the coastal plains (assuming you've experienced them), what is the difference between your experience and the description we get? Why is this significant?
What is different when you compare the boy looking over the map to the man doing the same thing as a boy?
The man dreams of a library where the books were charred and he sees the shelves were tipped over. "Some rage at the lies arranged in their thousands row on row." What lies are in the books that cause rage?
Why do you think McCarthy included the memory with the burning snakes? What prompts the man to remember this scene from his childhood?
"When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up." Explain your understanding of this quote.
What has caused the new distance between the man and the boy?
42 comments:
If the old man was a nomad before the mass endings of the people/all life, this means he was used to and equipped to handle life on the road.
The coast in the book is different from the coast in real life (right now at least) because most of the coast is beautiful, not barren. And sure, it gets windy and it rains and snows, but not to the dark degree that is described... this is significant because it shows how much the world has changed.
When the boy looks at the map, he is looking for his future (sort of corny but whatever) and where they pair will go to survive, compared to when the man looked at the map as a boy he was doing it for a sense of adventure and to think of the places he could travel.
The old guy was sketchy... period. He almost didn't even seem like he could appropriately express emotion.
"There is no God and we are his prophets"; this quote seems to me like it just means that we are the people of this earth and we control our own being. We determine what happens and how to differentiate between right and wrong. God doesn't control anything, we were put on this earth to do what he "apparently does".
When the boy forgets to turn the valve off, he does realize how important it is and the mistake he has made. The man looks at it as: there are bigger things to worry about than if they have a stove or not and he tries to make it so the boy doesn't feel bad by saying it's not his fault. The man takes the blame for it and says it was his fault he didn't tell him both valves should be turned. The boy is so mature for being so young.
"When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up."---To me, this quote just means that if you dream about something and you're happy with that dream but you realize it will never happen, you've given up on the dream. (But youre content with dreaming about it)
When I think of coastal plains, I think of green grass going for miles will little hills and few marshes. There are animals and few lived in homes. In the books description of coastal plains, everything is lifeless and there is no color. The land was described as “gullied and eroded and barren” (177). There was trash and bones of dead creatures spread out all over. Farmhouses were decaying. I think showing this description in the book was significant because it shows how much the world has changed due to the actions of the people. While we may not know these exact actions, we do know cannibalism is happening. It is shown that this action causes the world to turn for the worse, becoming colorless and lifeless.
I very much believed the quote "nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave". The old man says this to the boy and the man in spite of his journey on the road and the fact that he is still living his life. I believe this quote can really explain life. Many people can be put in frustrating and hard situations where they just don't want to be here anymore but deep down they wouldn't ever want to leave. This explains the life on the road as well. The things they are going through make them absolutely miserable, yet, they don't wanna be put to death. As the quote goes, they don't want this life their living on the road, but they don't want no life at all.
I think the man means by the quote “I am going to die,” he said. “Tell me how I am to do that” that he does not know how he can die and leave his son to survive without him. He does not want to leave his son alone in the harsh world they have tried so hard to survive in. How the man is supposed to die, I am not sure. I think the man realizes death is inevitable and irreversible. It is not that he can choose when to die but that death is something he can not control.
No one wants to be here because there is nothing that they can really do. Everything isn't worth all the trouble. However, no one wants to give up and just die that’s like saying you were doing all this for nothing. Everything that you did doesn't count and never will. No one wants to feel like a no body. Even if the road their own is tough they don't have to just quit. Plus the old man who said this didn't believe in an afterlife or a God, so he believes once he died his corpse would just wither away.
I think that the boy will eventually get over believing in God. I think in a post-apocalyptic society like the on in the Road, that God is a luxury that these survivors cannot afford. God and religion typically symbolize hope, faith, and the possibility for change, none of which exist in this lawless society. The boy is still a young, naive character who might believe that someday things are going to change, for the better, but there is no evidence that points to this. To me, I think it is sad for the child to believe in God, because it's like Santa Claus, the boy is believing in a supernatural figure that is never going to actually do anything for him. If the boy continues to believe in God to save them and help them, I think he will be continually disappointed in this society because no one else thinks in the same moral fashion that he does. I think the old man is right in assuming the boy will get over his belief in God after being continually let down by him.
There are many religious elements in this novel. It's a shame that most of the ideas about God are cynical, but understandable in this hopeless cataclysm. "There is no God and we are his prophets." This quote is obviously referring to the fact that God probably does not exist and we will never have any proof of his existence. However, there will always be people who will sacrifice everything to proclaim that their God is real. A prophet is one with religious inspiration who can proclaim the will of God. That definition seems to describe the majority of the religious sect of the human race; it describes those who will do anything in the name of what they know their god wants. I'm sure that that sect of the human race would only grow more fanatical in the face of an apocalypse.
As far as we know right now, God is a creation of man. If God does exist, He is only of importance because of the humans who worship Him. "Where men can't live gods fare no better." This means that if men cease to exist, then there seems to be little point for the existence of any sort of god. I don't mean to be self-centered regarding the rest of the universe, however, I am under the impression that humans are the only ones that care about gods. Animals do not worship. Plants do not pray to the divine. If men cease to exist, the very idea of gods perishes along with the human race.
I think the man believes the boy will "get over" believing in God because he himself stopped believing. I think that his experiences in life have been so bad that he cannot possible muster up any faith in a higher power. It is not uncommon for someone who goes through or is going through a tragedy to turn his or her back on faith. I think the man's thinking is that if you give up on faith, you won't be disappointed with the outcome. I believe the man sees the hope in his son's eyes, like the hope he once had, and doesn't want the boy to experience the same let-down he once did. But in my personal belief, times where there is no hope is when your faith needs to be the strongest.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." Explain this quote, then tell me what you think about it.
Obviously, nobody wants to live in a desolate, dead, perilous world. Nobody wants to be in a situation like the man and the boy are in. But nobody wants to simply give up and die, either. Like all animals, humans have a keen survival instinct. They don't want to die. They want to survive. Even when things seem bleak, they find the slightest sliver of hope to hold on to. They search for a sanctuary among the destruction, pushing on through the exhaustion and the pain and the hopelessness with one thing in mind: that at the end of their journey, when they finally reach their sanctuary, all of that suffering will have been worth it. I love this quote - well, I love almost all of the quotes from this book, but this is probably one of my favorites.
"Where men can't live gods fare no better." Explain this one...
I agree with Kayla on this. Animals and plants do not worship. As far as we know, humans are the only ones who believe in and worship gods. So, if humans were to be wiped out, then what point would there be for gods? There wouldn't be anyone to worship them. There wouldn't even be anyone to believe in them. As far as the nonhuman world is concerned, there are no gods.
I think that when he says " where men can't live gods fare no better " he is saying that god is no longer present on earth. He believes that since men can no longer truly live on earth, god has left earth because he cant live there either.
I think that the old man believes the boy will "get over" believing in God simply because he will eventually lose all innocence and will see that if God was still present, then these things would not have happened.
The statement "where men can't live gods fare no better" means that in a land so desolate and hopeless, people too will forget religion because they give up on it. Because the despair in the novel, the land is godless because they have given up in God, who evidently did not help them. From Ely's perspective, he thinks the boy will stop having faith because he thinks the boy will come to the realization that God will never help him.
The quote "Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave" relates to the lives of many people in our world today. There are people in everyday life that are unhappy with the way the live but yet they don't do anything to change it. For example, being miserable about a job you have is a common complaint these days. However, no one takes the initiative to change it and start over because of the fear of the unknown. Many people are also afraid of losing all of the hard work that they have put together over the years. Just like in the novel. They don't want to live the life that they are leading, but to give up would be a waste of everything they have over come.
When the man says, "I am going to die… Tell me how I am to do that," he realizes that death is an inevitable factor. Nevertheless, he is unprepared for how it is to happen. He knows that he is very sick, and each night when he wakes up coughing, he coughs until he sees blood. This is a sign that it is getting worse, and he knows that eventually it could kill him. He also knows that he could die if he is caught by people who have sought to cannibalism. This is not what he fears the most however. What he truly wants to know is whether he will die with his son or not. He promised he would never leave him, but he questions whether he will actually be able to take his own son’s life if it were to come to that.
"There is no God and we are his prophets". This quote really shows the despair of the world. It is easy to believe in God when your life is filled with happiness and love. It is, however, much harder to believe in God when life worsens and is hard. The life on Earth is now extremely difficult. It seems hopeless at times. There are still people who hold onto their hope and religion tightly. The old man is criticizing the people who still believe in God with this quote. He is saying that people who still have hope for God to save them are wasting their time. They are buying into a fake idea of salvation.
The quote "Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." is a perfect description of the world at the time. No one wants to live in a world that is ruined and dead, but no one wants to give up and waste all of their effort and miss the opportunity in case it does get better.
I don't think the boy will get over believing in God. Every child believes in something, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, etc. but since he doesn't have anything like that to believe in, he turns to God. I think it gives the boy hope and makes him the sweet, innocent child he is.
The quote, "Nobody wants to be here and nobdoy wants to leave" is very understandable in this situation. After a devistating event wiping out almost all living things on earth, obviously the conditions of living and staying on earth are very difficult and harsh. I certainly would not want to be there to struggle to stay alive. However, I would like to be able to call myself a surviver if the world was someday reconstructed. I would be motivated to stay alive for the sole reason of being a surviver and one who knew what the earth was like before the mass destruction. I think that is what was meant when the old man told this to the little boy.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave."
I love this quote. It describes the way most people think. People that are put into hard decisions or difficult moments in their life sometimes wish they didn’t exist so they don’t have to deal with the situation. But those same people that don’t want to exist at that moment don’t want to die either. In the man and the boy’s case, they don’t want to live in the horrible, desolate land, but they don’t want to give up either.
My understanding on the quote "When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up" is that you need perseverance, hope, and to not give up. When the father shares this with the boy he is sharing with him what he knows hope to be. That hope will not come with wishing of some ideal world that never existed, or in on that will never exist again, but that hope is when facing the world that we know not losing hope because of what we have. In the best sense this quote is the man leaving some wisdom with the kid he knows one day he will leave.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody want to leave" to me the quote summarizes how people feel about the world in the book. Nobody actually wants to live in that world, but once their there they never want to leave. To leave would be to die, no one ever wants to die, but in the book some may wish that they were never born. They want to change the past but they can't, they don't want to be faced with the challenge of living in a post apocalyptic world.
The impossible and happy endings are in books that cause rage. Readers get attached, and start to believe that events in books can happen in real life the exact way that it occurred in the book. When it doesn't happen, a reader then starts to get angry that their life isn't exactly like how it is in the books. We all want that fairy tale ending. When it doesn't happen, we get angry.
Death to characters that readers become attached to, also causes rage. This is completely nerdy, and I apologize for making this reference. When book seven of the Harry Potter series was released, readers were devastated that Tonks and Lupin died. They questioned Rowling and why she would leave another person just like Harry was, alone and without parents. In short, readers were outraged over an event that happened in a fiction book.
Again, the attachment to events in books cause readers to be angry.
"where men can't live gods fare no better"
I agree with Kayla. God only exists within those who believe in him. So if there were to be no believers, then there would be no God either.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave."
Nobody wants to be in this situation where there barely holding on to life, but nobody wants to die either. They hate the world they live in, but they also dont want to leave it.
When it is said that the old man thinks that the boy will “get over” believing in God, I think that because of what has happened to the world it seems hard to believe in something that is supposed to give you faith to keep going. Everything around is dead and gone. Faith and hope diminish in people the longer they starve and live in the world. Pretty soon, believing in God becomes the least of many people’s worries. Survival is the only thing that matters to who is left. God has not helped them, so why should they believe in Him?
Like the old man, I too thought the boy would 'get over' believing in God. Or at least I thought he would start questioning the idea of God. Especially when they went for long periods of time without food or when the boy tried to help others he found on the road. I was waiting for a point in the book where he would ask himself if he still believed or ask questions like 'why me, God. Why, after I try to be the good guy, why do I still suffer?'
When I read this I got a weird feeling about the old man. I did not like his quote at all. "There is no God and we are his prophets." What?! It seems like he is saying there is not a God to help them in the poor situation. There is no one watching over them, and no where to go when they die but instead they are stuck in the horrible place they are now. The old man has lost all faith in anything bigger then himself. It seems to me like he just gave up all together and he does not think it matters if he lives or dies because he would be stuck in the same place regardless.
I think the old man meant that he had been homeless before all of the events even happened. He had been accustomed to this type of life before anyone else, therefore being better off. It's importance is that he knew how to survive and adapt to this kind of environment, and even being old and frail, he had managed to outlive many people.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." That quote explains the book in a nutshell. It basically just explains that the survivors on Earth are hopeless, but they don't know what will come with death, so they do not accept that either. They are stuck in an unhappy state, but don't do anything to change it! They take no initative in life - they just go along to see what the next day brings, which is potentially nothing.
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." I totaly agree with Rachel on her explination of this quote; it does describe the book in a nutshell. Nobody wants to be in that place beacuse everything is destroyed, there is hardly any food or water, there are "bad guys", ect. Nobody wants to leave because the survivors know that they are hopeless and just go day by day to see what the next day brings.
"Where men can't live gods fare no better." This is such a bleak statement. I believe that it means that when men have lost the will to live then it is too late for God or religion to save them. I don't really agree with this, however. I feel like in times of great despair and hopelessness people turn to God to try and find reason in their current situation. It makes me sad that the people in the story have turned their backs on religion and are trying to make it through the world on their own.
When I first read this quote, I had to go back and read it for a second time to make sure that I understood it. Once I understood it, I really could see why it could be true. America, in this novel, is a very desolate and abandoned place with death surrounding everything, everywhere. The whole landscape is gray and charred and food is almost impossible to find. It would only make sense to dream about these horrible things that surround you because you don’t know anything else. What this quote is trying to say is that once you start dreaming about a world that you don’t wake up to or a world that you will never see, then you have given up the fight to live. You wake up from these happy dreams to a world that is just the opposite and you become disappointed. You wake up and you want what you can’t have which can become very depressing.
The reason the old man thinks the boy will get over believing in god is because of how much everyone has suffered. God is believed to kind and loving, not capable of destorying an entire country or world full of people. This belief in a cuddly god is unrealistic considering that in the bible god has destoried millions of nonbelievers.
"Where men can't live gods fare no better."
Wow. Awesome quote, awesome idea. I think this quote is one of my favorites in the book, because it's so true. There's more than likely over a billion gods in the thousands of religions in this world, but they're only worshiped and remembered because their followers carry on the ideals the gods stands for. Without people, what's left to keep the gods alive?
“Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.” Well it’s a no brainer that nobody wants to live in an ashen world filled with one too many cannibals. And dying isn’t easy, therefore if the only way to leave is to die why would they want to leave? The human body was designed to survive…
I think the quote “There is no God and we are his prophets,” may mean that the man and the boy are nobodies in a godless world. They are left with the fire and get to choose how it is passed on and what is passed on.
When the boy forgot to turn of both valves on their make-shift stove, I realized just how patient and protective the man is with his son. He is such a good and smart father who has dealt with so much and yet has raised the boy as best as he could have on his own in the conditions. The man wouldn’t let the boy take one ounce of the blame at all.
The man seems to be over estimating the distances they covered so far when they look at the map. Maybe his desperation made him a bit delusional or wants to be optimistic towards the boy, but the boy knows better and is therefore more accurate when looking at the maps.
Why didn't the old man feel the need to thank the boy and his father? He knows that he wouldn't have shared with them if the situations were reversed, so does he think that the boy is helping for some other reason than humanity? The man didn't even want to give the old man anything anyways. Does that make the man inhumane? I know the man hasn't given up on humanity yet, because he still did help the man, and still wanted good fortune when the old man left. The old man, I don't think, saw any benefit in thanking his helpers, so he didn't.
maybe the old man is a nomad, or maybe he simply does not remember anything about his life before whatever event happened that caused the world to be in the condition it is. and it would matter because if he is really always on the road, then he may be more dangerous, clever, or just be better at being nomadic.
the quote about leaving and being here means that if they could be almost anywhere else in the world, then they would be. but they can't go anywhere else, except to death, and that doesn't sound like a good alternative.
"there is no god and we are his prophets" either means that they are the the ones who know there is no god and are tasked with letting everyone know, or that god has left or no longer exists, and they have to act for him.
"where men can't live gods fare no better" means that gods are reliant on people for, well, a purpose, so without people, there isn't really a point in the gods existing.
"Where men can't live gods fare no better." I think this quote is really cool. Basically, it means that without humans, gods are nothing. What value does a god have if there are no humans to revere it? In the post-apocalyptic world of The Road where few humans can survive, gods aren't exactly doing too well, either.
I agree with the man when he says the boy will "get over" his belief in god. The experiences that he has been faced with have shown him the cruelty that resides in peoples hearts. At such a young age, the boy is inexperienced and holds on to faith that the world can still be a good place. As he becomes more mature he will realize that although there is good in the world, there will always be evil. He will understand that there is no divine being protecting him.
Even though the old man said the boy will get over believeing in god, I don't think the boy ever will. The boy has already seen so much despair in the world and he still believe in god. Maybe it's his shred of hope he has left. His only reason to try and survive.
The old man says, "I was always on the road." Does this mean he was a transient before the devastation? Why would this matter?
I think the old man means the path everyone is on in their life, like each choice you make is a turn in the path until you get to your final destination. He seems to know what he’s talking about when he says something interesting. The way the old man is described, is the way prophets are described in greek and roman mythology which has a lot of tie ins in this book.
The reason the old man thinks the boy will get over believing in god is because of how much everyone has suffered. God is believed to kind and loving, not capable of destorying an entire country or world full of people. I agree when Jason said this. God has a way of making everything seem ok, but in this novel, that's not the case at all.
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