The+Back+Road+Guys

Marshall Jonathan Thomaz Forest John

THE BACK ROAD BOYS

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Father and Son Bond very important in the story.

‘’You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” Traumatic experiences stick with you.

“Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now.” This is explaining some of the bonds that the boy and man share.

What we know: Father and son vs. the World.

What we wonder: What happened to the world?

**pgs. 51-102**

Are people really savages without order? If this really happened would it become such a free-for-all? Yes, humans are animals when push comes to shove.

Do you think the father made the right decision by letting the boy live? Would you do the same? Yes. But once it reaches a certain point, we would kill the boy before killing ourselves to put him to rest.

How has the relationship changed to this point? It is becoming more and more strained as the father makes decisions for the betterment of their survival.

Quotes: Marshall

Why did he immediately assume the boy was talking about dying and not living with the mother? The mother gave up, he does not want to take the easy way out.

Thomaz In Brazil nobody would kill the son.


 * Pgs. 103-152**

//"What does this book tell us about despair and freedom."//

Hope: The man keeps pushing them on hoping that they find food and they find the orchard and the bunker. They would've given up but they had enough hope to not give up.

Freedom: Total freedom and civilization turns into savagery.

The man is very dependence on the son, he was about to try and save his son and run and distract the savages, but he looks at the boy and can't bear the thought of leaving him.

Would you eat someone to survive? When it comes to life and death, would you? Probably :3

Themes: Hope, freedom, despair, bonds and death.

If you and your son were in a situation like the people in the houses cellar that were naked, starved and held captive and about to be eaten and you only had one bullet and couldn't fight the cannibals. Would you kill yourself or the son?

Is the man trying to hide reality from his son? Not exactly, he's not giving definite answers. He says we'll die someday, but not today. Son has to ask the questions and come to the conclusions by himself. The man is trying to train his son to become self-sufficient.

Father is very self-sufficient and a handyman and knows a lot about survival skills.


 * Discussion Questions:**

How is the man's sickness affecting the boy, is his worry taking a toll on his will to survive?

Does the man know he is going to die soon? How will he act around the boy knowing this?

Should they have tried to find a group of people to survive with?

Quotes- "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." (pg. 153) The boy all he has ever known is the desolate world. The father has lived in "both worlds" before and after the event, which separates the boy and the father mentally.
 * Pgs. 150-230**

Discussion question: Does the man know he is going to die of sickness? The father knows he is going to die of sickness. We believe he is going to spend whatever time he has left training the boy to live on his own.

Do you think the two are losing hope that life is better in the south? Why do they continue to travel south? We believe they are indeed losing hope that life in the south is better. However they continue to travel south because it gives them hope that life will get better in the south. It also gives them something to do rather than just sitting and going crazy.

Quote: "Nobody wants to be here and no one wants to leave." This quote means that people are just walking around without a purpose just waiting to die.

Scrabbled- to scratch or scrape. as with the claws or hands.

Why do you think the author give a name to Eli? Because by giving Eli a name the author is showing that he is less affected by the event. While he is affected, he has not lost his human attributes.


 * Pgs. 230-End**

Was it right to leave the man naked in the road? No, it's uncivilized, shows lack of ethic. But we can see the reasoning behind it. The boy is always trying to be the good in the world.

Nightmares - nightmares of family dying. loosing connections.

relying on others at a young age. The child relies on the father to teach him the ropes. He was not ready to face the world on his own.

The good guys have humanity.