The Road Sections 141-150 Quotes
The Road Sections 141-150 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph)
The falling snow curtained them about. There was no way to see anything at either side of the road. He was coughing again and the boy was shivering, the two of them side by side under the sheet of plastic, pushing the grocery cart through the snow. Finally he stopped. The boy was shaking uncontrollably.
We had to stop, he [The Man] said.
[The Boy:] It's really cold.
[The Man:] I know.
[The Boy:] Where are we?
[The Man:] Where are we?
[The Boy:] Yes.
[The Man:] I dont know.
[The Boy:] If we were going to die would you tell me?
[The Man:] I dont know. We're not going to die. (144.1-144.10)
As in Robinson Crusoe, Lost, and other survival stories, these characters often find themselves on the brink of death. But we especially enjoy the nearly absurd dialogue between The Man and The Boy here. (If you've read Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, dialogue like this might sound familiar.) The Boy wants to know whether The Man would say anything if they were close to death. The Man says he doesn't know if he'd tell The Boy. Then he says, "We're not going to die." How is The Boy supposed to believe him if he just said he might not tell him? Basically, The Boy will just have to take his word for it.
An army in tennis shoes, tramping. Carrying three-foot lengths of pipe with leather wrappings. [. . .] The phalanx following carried spears or lances tasseled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out of trucksprings in some crude forge upcountry. [. . .] Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that the women, perhaps a dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites illcothed against the cold and fitted in dogcollars and yoked each to each. All passed on. They lay listening.
[The Boy:] Are they gone, Papa?
[The Man:] Yes, they're gone.
[The Boy:] Did you see them?
[The Man:] Yes.
[The Boy:] Were they the bad guys?
[The Man:] Yes, they were the bad guys. (141.4-141.10)
It seems like another giveaway of the "bad guys" is that they keep slaves with them. The Man and The Boy, on the other hand, spend a lot of energy trying not to harm others. We think good and evil in this book have a lot to do with how one responds to desperate situations: do you prey on those weaker than yourself, or do you avoid others and try to retain some sliver of decency like The Man? Or, like The Boy, do you go above and beyond the call of duty and care for those worse off than yourself? We think the gap between this bloodcult on the road and The Boy seems nearly unbridgeable.