The Road Sections 221-230 Quotes
The Road Sections 221-230 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph)
He sat the boy on the footlocker under the gaslamp and with a plastic comb and a pair of scissors he set about cutting his hair. He tried to do a good job and it took some time. When he was done he took the towel from around the boy's shoulders and he scooped the golden hair from the floor and wiped the boy's face and shoulders with a damp cloth and held a mirror for him to see.
[The Boy:] You did a good job, Papa.
[The Man:] Good.
[The Boy:] I look really skinny.
[The Man:] You are really skinny.
He cut his own hair but it didnt come out so good. He trimmed his beard with the scissors while a pan of water heated and then he shaved himself with a plastic safety razor. The boy watched. When he was done he regarded himself in the mirror. He seemed to have no chin. He turned to the boy. How do I look? The boy cocked his head. I dont know, he said. Will you be cold? (225.1-225.6)
What does this passage have to do with love? Well, The Man does a better job cutting The Boy's hair than he does his own. You may respond: "OK. Whatever. The Man can actually see what he's doing when he cuts The Boy's hair." Fair enough. But isn't this "failure" part of love? That we care for others somehow better than we could ever care for ourselves?
[The Boy:] Do you think somebody is coming?
[The Man:] Yes. Sometime.
[The Boy:] You said nobody was coming.
[The Man:] I didnt mean ever.
[The Boy:] I wish we could live here.
[The Man:] I know.
[The Boy:] We could be on the lookout.
[The Man:] We are on the lookout.
[The Boy:] What if some good guys came?
[The Man:] Well, I dont think we're likely to meet any good guys on the road.
[The Boy:] We're on the road.
[The Man:] I know. (224.8-224.19)
The Boy makes a very good point here. Supposedly there aren't any good guys on the road – but aren't they on the road? This could mean a couple things. One, it could mean The Man and The Boy aren't actually "good guys" since no "good guys" travel the road. We're inclined to disagree with that statement. (Disclosure: We do have a soft spot for these characters, but that's only because they try really hard to be good people.) Or, it could mean these The Man and The Boy are completely alone – the only "good guys" left on the road.
Quote 3
When he woke again he thought the rain had stopped. But that wasnt what woke him. He'd been visited in a dream by creatures of a kind he'd never seen before. They did not speak. He thought that they'd been crouching by the side of his cot as he slept and then had skulked away on his awakening. He turned and looked at the boy. Maybe he understood for the first time that to the boy he was himself an alien. A being from a planet that no longer existed. The tales of which were suspect. He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he. He tried to remember the dream but he could not. All that was left was the feeling of it. He thought perhaps they'd come to warn him. Of what? That he could not enkindle in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own. Even now some part of him wished they'd never found this refuge. Some part of him always wished it to be over. (228.1)
The Man desperately wants to tell The Boy about how the world was before the "long shear of light" (88.1). We can't blame him – wouldn't you want your son to love the world instead of hating it? And who would love the world The Man and The Boy have found themselves in? One problem: "He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well." Basically this means that The Man can't talk about a happy world without always implicitly suggesting that it no longer exists.