The Road: Part 2

Part A:
"He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and despair."
It seems that the feeling he has is the the "will of life." Despite the conditions he and his son has to life and suffer, they still persevere. What hope do they have? That's each other. Are they living? I think so and that is for each other. Some would say "What is the point of surviving?" or "They aren't living anymore." I can't deny the fact that they are living to surviving but the definition of "how and what to live for" is subjective. We often define it based on our society: our aspirations and our entertainment. But to the man and the boy, they are living for each other. Isn't that reason enough? Why be give up on one's life so quickly when one doesn't even have a chance to live it? Yes, I feel sorry for the boy. Their perseverance is admirable without having resorting to abandoning their sense of morals and ethics to survive.

"Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock?"
That's probably the most explicit thought of killing his child yet. I think he was able to do it considering the circumstances. Innately, he has faced the truth and he is capable of doing it, but he refuses. Luckily, it didn't have to come to that and the story continues! We know very well that the gun isn't the only thing that's capable of killing a person so he could have ended both their lives if he decided so (should keep an obsidian rock in that knapsack of his for "emergencies").

Part B:
I'd have to say that the poem is absolutely dense, difficult to read, and has many references (especially to the Gunpowder plot and Dante's Inferno). It seems that the narrator is descending deeper and deeper into hell (Dante?) and as he (or she, for those feminists) descends, the people (would be more appropriate to kill them sinners?) seem to be more hollow. There isn't a difference between the hollowed man and the stuffed man besides that the stuffed man is, indeed, stuffed with straws "Headpiece stuffed with straws."Does he mean that we're all innately evil because we're all just really hollow men stuffed with "straws?" He also chooses the stuff the straws in our "headpieces" which would signify our thoughts and whatnot.

I the fifth section, the beginning and end are compared and in between. To be honest, I was lost, but I'll go out on a limb. It seems that there is a hell inside each of us "For Thine is the Kingdom" and that our death is ultimately causes by our thoughts(?). Due to that, the end of the world is ending inside each of us and that is way it goes out in a whimper, but a bang "This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper."


Yeat's and Eliot's poems differ, but can be related to The Road. Yeat's poem describes chaos and the "Second coming," In the novel, the second coming is depicted at the aftermath of the scorching of the Earth and how the survivors are doing. The lack of society and the conditions humans are resorting to e.g. cannibalism, "recycling" women (the pregnant one; babies; food) shows the "hell" in each of us. The world doesn't actually end "end" but the most, if not all, the people are because of what they're willing to do. I'm probably not making any sense...