Travelling+Ashes

Mitch Rachael Kelsey Drew

Our Laws "you forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget"

1. Grey is the only color- whenever you see grey HIGHLIGHT! 2. Do your work- JUST DO IT! 3. NO SOCIAL LOAFING 4. Don't mess with the wiki aka no trolling 5. DON'T GRAY!!!!!!

Pages 15-50

What happened? - ashes everywhere - at first seem to be the only people - been going on for awhile - not safe -- scared - earthquake - lightening West Coast? - A lot of death - dad keeping his sheltered

Father Son - short conversations - Boy is always scared - Father scared but doesn't tell the boy - Father is religious -Father's dreams -flashbacks? - foreshadowing? - revisiting his past - Past in dreams and places

Writing style - short sentences

What we know? - father and son vs world - everything is ashy and gray - they are heading south - he has one bullet

What we wonder? - what happened to the world? - where are they? - mother? she is dead? - their names?

pages 51-101

discussion: - what is the meaning of the father's dreams - what are the pros and cons of self destruction?
 * mostly involving his wife
 * causes him to wonder whether he should die
 * the wife believes there is no hope
 * you don't suffer through life
 * you don't see all of your loved ones die
 * the father knows there is little hope, but he wants to hold onto that little hope
 * self destruction gets rid of any possibility of truly living

- the people they encounter
 * hints of cannibalism
 * nomadic bandits
 * the little boy the son sees

- religion
 * the father talks about God
 * shows he has hope that there could be a reason for the suffering


 * 1) Cormic McCarthy1933
 * 2) Writes literary fiction
 * 3) Writers in the west
 * 4) Writes mostly about men
 * 5) What does he want us to learn
 * 6) The Border Trilogy
 * 7) Blood Meridian
 * 8) No Country for Old Men
 * 9) 1999
 * 10) a. He had a son (66) (third marriage)
 * 11) 2006 - The RoadPulitzer Prize for literatureRoman Catholic
 * 12) Wrote The Road for his son
 * 13) 3 marriages
 * 1) 3 marriages
 * 1) 3 marriages

What does the book tell us about despair? About Freedom? These two people are put into impossible situations but they have to deal with it. Freedom comes with a price.

"it was desperation that lead him to such carelessness and he could not do it again"(117) (136) "But when he bent to see into the boy's face under the hood of the blanket he very much feared that something was gone that he could not be put right again." (128)"we wouldn't ever eat anybody, would we?/No. Of course not/ Even if we were starving?/We're starving now/You said we werent./I said we werent dying. I didnt say we werent starving."


 * Is it better to have seen the world before the destruction and to have lost it like the father? Or is it better to not have known what the world was like, like the son?
 * Will the son be able to kill himself when the time comes, how will the father react?
 * How do you think the son and the father have kept their humanity and sanity in the midsts of all of this death and destruction?
 * “The bad guys” are cannibals and terrorist, do you think that they are still human, how do you think they lost their humanity?
 * Things seem to be going to well for them when we leave off, do you think it will last explain why?

154-230 (summary of what we talked about because our notes got deleted)
 * Ely--> not giving any real information, not his real name and not his same age
 * says that we are all prophets
 * dark prophet- angry with god, says there is no god
 * The Road metaphor of Death or HopeThe pregnant lady and the other people suprised us we didnt think they were cannibals, shows that on the road you can trust no one.
 * both depends on what path in the road you take the route the cannibals take are death path, and hope is the route the son and the father take

230- end

- The boy's new family is nice. - the boy matured - Son- We never help anyone - Was it right to take the robbers stuff - no- he should have only taken their stuff back - boy knew they killed him - what do you think the boy symbolized through the book - Angle? - Do you think the man did the right thing by letting the boy live? - dad didn't plan on dying - told son what to do "Maps and mazes. of a thing which could not be put back." - boy talks to his father WHY NO NAMES???