On page 261, the lines start out with thoughts inside the father's head in which he is thinking about how he is going to die and what he should say to the boy. It then goes back to the mans actions as he is sorting through their supply of cans making sure they are suitable to eat. They then begin walking back down the coast again and in three days they come across a small port town and looked in a house for food nut found nothing. The father and boy continue wheeling the cart down the town until something whistled past his head. The father dives down and covers the boy with his body, and sees a man in the window with a bow drawn back. The father protects the boy and hears the bow snap followed by a sharp pain in his leg. The father in anger turns around and shoots his flair gun up into the window at the man. The man flails back and screams as the father proceeds in limping to the back of the house and goes up the stairs to find a woman crying in the corner covering the man. The father leaves them there and takes the boy and the cart and continue traveling until they made camp in a store at the end of town. The father then tells the boy to get the first aid kit but the boy does not move and so the father angrily yells at him again to get it. The boy grabs it and gives it to the father who begins stitching his wound up as the boy watches.
They stayed there for the day and the father asks if the boy wants to tell a story but the boy says no. When the father asks why the boy replies its because they are not true because in all the stories they are helping people, but they never actually help people. The father then tries to persuade the boy to tell him a dream or anything but the boy does not want to because there all about bad things. The boy then tells the dad that he hears him get up in the night coughing up blood and that one time he heard him crying.
They leave the store two days later and continued walking but finding nothing on their path. After a few days the father takes his stitches out and then coughs up blood. The story continues describing their travel and the father's troubles as he is forced to rest and is continually coughing, and there is little to no more conversation between he and his boy. It describes the two walking past dead trees and burned cities. Winter was upon them and it was cold as they continued walking, for that was all that they could do. The father and boy kept walking and went inland and within two days they came back to a road and walk ten miles in two days until they came to a crossroads. The father coughed until he could not cough anymore and knew that this was here he would die. The boy's eyes were welling as he knew his Papa was dieing. The father laid back in the grass and did not want anything to cover him and refused to eat the last can of food they had which was peaches. The father took the boys hand and told him that the boy would be alright because he would be lucky as they had been. He tells the boy to do everything they had done and to find the good guys. The boy is crying and telling the father that he wants to go with him but the father says that he can't but that the boy can talk to him when he is gone and that the boy will hear his father. The father then falls asleep as the boy watches him and when the father awakes in the night coughing blood the boy is still there watching him. The boy then proceeds in questioning the dad if he remembers the little boy they saw and the father does. The boy then asks if he thinks he is alright and the father says that he thinks the little boy is alright and that goodness will save him. The little boy slept close with his father that night but when he woke in the morning the father was stiff and cold. The boy tried calling the father's name over and over but there was no reply. The boy stayed there lamenting for three days and then walked back onto the road.
When the boy approached the road he looked down the way and saw a man coming his way. The boy didn't even try to run and just watched as the man carrying a shotgun came closer. The man has been watching the father and boy for sometime and asks if the boy would like to come with him and his wife who had a little boy and girl. The boy asks if the man is carrying the fire and the man confused at first realizes what he was asking and said yes. The boy then went back to his father and said goodbye and cried for a little while and told him that he would talk to him every day. The boy then rose and went back to the road with the man and the woman.They then set back off on the road. The woman would talk to the boy about God sometimes, but to the boy the best thing was to talk to his dad.
This book was phenomenal. I have never felt more realness of the characters than when I was reading this book. Cormac McCarthy's description of an obliterated world with a small sense of goodness in a boy and his father is breathtaking. The hardest part that I had with this book was reading through the section where the father dies because I have never read anything where the good guy dies in the end and it startled me, and I felt the emotions that the little boy was going through. One thing I thought interesting in The Road, was that when the father found the safe haven in the ground the boy chose for their first meal to be a can of peaches, and when the father was dieing the last can of food left that they had together was also a can of peaches. The other thing about this book that I thought was interesting was the allusion to God. There are doubters such as the old man who didn't believe in God and would eventually die, and then there was the father and the boy who did and had constant luck which helped them survive. The father told the boy that goodness and luck will happen to them, and on the third day after the father (Sign of hope and goodness) died, the boy went to the road and went in to the company of another good family; Almost like how in the bible Jesus died, and then rose on the third day. This book is full of lessons in life, like to appreciate what you have, and is overall a masterpiece of literary fiction in my opinion.
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