Novel Study - Journal

The Road

"I have to watch you all the time... If you break little promises you'll break big ones." (pg 34 McCarthy)

Overcoming difficulties seems to be the theme of this novel, they're living in a post apocalyptic world and need to learn how to deal with new and interesting struggles consistently. Many human traits are put to the test over the course of the novel so far and the two main characters, the father and son have been quite well at dealing with them.

Trust, a very important human trait is something that everyone struggles with on a daily basis. Especially in a post apocalyptic world where people are constantly fighting for their lives. This quote demonstrates that even people that are extremely close to one another can still have doubts as to what the other will follow through on. By working hard to build trust for one another people can survive together quite well, until somebody makes one mistake and then the trust is slightly destroyed and very difficult to mend. This is slightly shown in the book with the boy stating the quote shown above. His father may have possibly betrayed his trust in a previous event. Potentially, he could have lost something that was considered very important to himself and constantly struggles with himself to truly trust his father again. I believe that people will do anything they can to benefit themselves no matter what the cost may be to others surrounding them and this is potentially what may have happened with the father and his son. Throughout the novel the father seems overly protective of his son, trying to regain that trust and also making sure that he doesn't lose that which keeps his motivation for living going. Although the boy sometimes questions the fathers decisions all that they have is each other and they learn to cope with any difficulties they've faced thus far in the novel.

Indifference is perilous

1. "The Perils of Indifference" by Elie Wiesel suggests and points out the negative effects of standing by and not taking action until either it's too late or it involves you in some way or another. Without intervening with any of the negative deeds carried through in our world it can only effect everyone negatively in the end.

2. I would compare "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson to a book I read by Stephen King titled "The Long Walk" This story started out fairly similar, boys gathered for some sort of competition and the winner would get some sort of prize. As the story progressed the reader learned that those of the boys that failed to continue walking were shot down and killed until only one boy remained. This was the opposite of "The Lottery" since in the lottery the "winner" was the only one to get killed but still carried the same basic idea.

3. Elie Wiesels speech relates to "The Lottery" in that people don't usually have a care in the world about what's going on until either they're involved or it's too late. People carry on to support the wrong doings and don't bother to make any attempt to stop it. An example of this from Elie Wiesels speech would be "Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germany until 1942?" and is also shown in "The Lottery" with Old Man Warner continually putting people down for wanting to move past the lottery. If people were able to move past their fears of what other's thought of them when they choose to speak up then none of the terrible events mentioned in Elie Wiesels speech or "The Lottery" would have ever transpired.

Cliché This! §

It was a day like no other. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. However, this day would prove to be quite different from any other. Cars zipped past, Bobby prepared to bolt across the busy highway. His friends tried to warn him and stop him but all he said was "I got this in the bag." Bobby had no intention of ever running across a busy highway in the middle of the day but, his unjust actions in the past had to be made up for and doing something extremely stupid was the only way people could think of for him to make up for them. What goes around comes around. Since Bobby was a little cocky, he figured that this would  be mere childs play and that he would make it across the highway with no problem at all. Of course, those that knew Bobby well enough knew that he was all talk and no action so nobody truely expected him to carry through with it. So, when Bobby began to make to make a run towards the edge of the road he was immediately tackled down to the ground and knocked unconscious.

Once Bobby woke up it was quite evident he was as blind as a bat since all he could really do was stumble around and looked a little similar to a drunk old man trying to find his way on the sidewalk. "For Gods Sake! I've had it up to here with you guys!" Bobby angrily growled at the surrounding friends. "Now I can't even do the run as I'm barely able to stand up straight!" Everyone knew that Bobby was grasping at straws as he was now standing up quite fine and even walking around with no difficulties at all. But, they didn't want to hurt Bobby's feelings and just let it be.

"Cross your fingers for next time hey Bobby!" someone shouted from out behind him, he cast an angry glance back towards the group. "Haha, Just pulling your leg Bobby!" From the beginning they all knew Bobby was in over his head and they just carried on with their day, not bringing it up again.

P-P-P-P-POW-POWER!!!

Richard Spalding was awaken by the sound of his alarm clock, as usual. Ready for another day of the same old boring grind he walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, begun to grab out the cereal and milk and sat down and prepared for another boring day of work. As Richard was chewing the crunchy cheerios in his mouth he overheard on the news that there was a meteor shower expected tonight and that there wouldn't be any like it for another 50 years or so. Thinking nothing of it Richard turned off the television and continued to prepare himself for work.

Since he was running a little low on cash Richard decided that it would be best if he walked down to work today as it was a beautiful day outside anyways. The sun was dancing around in the sky, welcoming everyone into it's light and leaving none from its warm embrace. Not a cloud was in sight in the sky and jets were seen quite clearly soaring overhead towards larger cities. Richard let out a sigh as he knew that he would be trapped inside all day while others had the opportunity to enjoy the day. I wish my life had a little more excitement in it. He thought to himself as he walked down the jagged and cracked sidewalks on his way to work.

Ever since Richard had gotten his job as a factory worker he'd been doing the exact same routine day in and day out. Arrive at work, put packages together and every so often he'd be able to take really peculiar package up to the storage room and that would be all the action he'd ever get to see in his workplace. Now that he thought of it, Richard was really curious as to what was actually inside of those packages, they all had an eerie feeling to them whenever Richard would carry them around and he was never quite sure why. But, his boss strictly told him never to take a look inside as it would cost him his job. lost in his thoughts he was startled when he heard "Hey Richard!" from a fellow coworker.

"Hey Rick" he replied. Rick had been working the same job as Richard for around ten months now and they had become pretty good friends in that timeframe, they would always have discussions as work carried on through the day and without him Richard probably would have left his job a long time ago.



-- Not finished :)
ideas for continuation so i actually remember.
-decides to open package even though Rick advises not to
-see's some weird thing in there, exposure causes explosion
-Ricks trapped underneath beams, thinks about saving him, beams begin to lift a little
-Gets beams off of Rick, too late to save him
-Learns to control his power and use them
-??? yay good stuff happens?