CKG+-+Michael


 * Vocabulary**


 * Ch****arred (8)-to burn or reduce**
 * Autistic (15)- a tendency to view life in terms of one’s own needs and desires**
 * Litany** ** (31) ** **ceremonial ****or ****liturgical ****form ****of ****prayer ****consisting ****of ****a ****series of****invocations ****or ****supplications ****with ****responses ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">that ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">are ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">the same****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">for ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">a ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">number ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">in ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">succession **


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Connections **

On pages 55-58, the man and his wife argue over whether they should commit suicide. The man seems to have decided that keeping his son alive for as long as possible is the only reason to live. Every human and creature is born with the instinct to survive, that death should be avoided at all costs, but this instinct can be lost among humans. Everyone hears stories of suicide from time to time. Whether they are from books, movies, the news, or even people they know. The man gains the motivation to keep going from his son, which is similar to another of McCarthy’s books, //No Country for Old Men.// I have only seen the movie, but I know that it involves a man fighting to escape a vicious assassin; his motivation being the suitcase of money he found. The fact that this man is eventually killed certainly makes it more likely that the man in //The Road// will die as well.


 * Discussion** **Questions**
 * 1) On page 92 the author describes a group of people that the father and son narrowly avoid. "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 ill clothed against the cold and fitted in dog collars and yoked each to each."(92) What might all these things suggest about what is happening in the world the father and son are trying so hard to avoid?(Catamite- a boy or youth who is in a sexual relationship with a man.)
 * 2) On page 94, the son asks his father whether he would tell him if they were going to die. Would he, and why?
 * 3) "Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands."(110) Why are these people here, how are they kept alive, and why did the father react the way he did?
 * 4) On page 113, the father gives the gun to his son, but does not trust him to be able to use it. Why was he giving him the gun? What does what happened say about the father, an the boy?
 * 5) When rummaging through the house the father discovers apples and clean water. Does this mean that peope are finding ways around the contamination?

> > **More Vocabulary** > Sepulcher (223)- A tomb grave or burial place > Promontory (221)- A high point of land or rock projecting into the sea or other water beyond the line of coast > Desolation (221)- Devastation; ruin I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a parent especially in the boy’s circumstance, but I think I can somewhat understand the boy’s situation. He was young, lost, alone, and had little idea of what to do. If he did know what to do, I doubt he had the courage to do something. When I was younger I had been separated from my parents several times, although these were much less serious short term experiences.
 * Quotes**
 * 1) "They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterns. The first he'd seen in some while, common in the north, leading out of the looted and exhausted cities, hopeless messages to loved ones lost and dead."(180)
 * 2) "Its not your fault"(177)(This is said by the father after he finds that they ran out of gas already because the son forgot to tighten the cap. )
 * 3) "People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wan't getting ready for them.It didn't even know they were there." (168)
 * Connections**