As the father and son travel throughout The Road, the two have these little conversations between them. One of such conversation involved them talking about who were the good guys:
"Are we still the good guys?
Yes. We're still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay." (77)
But then think about it: In whoever's perspective, you are the good guy. You're always the good guy. Maybe the other person think's he or she is a good guy too. Then who is the good guy? No one is. Maybe everyone is. There are no good and bad guys. In the end, everyone wants to survive, only that they have different roads to get there. One might be ethically or morally or [something]ly better than the other, but then these are standards that we humans made. I hardly think it applies to a post-apocalyptic situation in which society has collapsed. Everyone's just out there, eating whatever it is they find (canned beans, corpses, Twinkies, and whatever nasty things you have on mind), and our two main characters are not that much different.
I just realized I have no idea what I'm talking about.
It's late at night and we all know our minds are much more cloudy at night for three reasons: One, we want to sleep. Two, we are lazy. Three, we are human.
Oh, actually, the third one sums up one and two, so we only have one reason. Yay for conciseness.
ARGH. I strayed from the path of 'homework done correctly' again.
Sorry. Back to The Road.
I have noticed how most of the conversations between father and son end with "Okay." The son always listens to what the father has to say, always believing him. Are those the bad guys? Yes. Okay. What was that? An earthquake. Okay. Are we gonna die? Yes, but not now. Okay. Go to sleep now. Okay. Stay right here. Okay. Okay? Okay.
The child, who represents the final hope, the last bit of humanity and innocence, believes whatever the father tells him. In this world that McCarthy has created, people just don't know what to believe anymore, or rather, there is nothing left to believe in. There are no beliefs. There is no 'why' for life, there is no 'because' for life... Life just is.
And it just keeps on going.
Okay?
Okay.
Okay. (Okay? Okay.)
ReplyDeleteSo I really love the way you write. Just the overall sarcasm and '[something]ness' makes the post really enjoyable and not a boring, gah-i-want-to-crawl-my-eyeballs-out response. And i pretty much agreed with the 'good guys/bad guys' scenario and idea. We always think we're the good guys. We try to atone everything we do with a positive outlook while we judge others on what for them is probably a 'morally-correct' action. It all depends on the fact that whatever you're doing (whether it be working for Peace Corps, reading stories to the elderly, or robbing banks and creating mass-destruction on the local prison) is for a good cause. The latter being due to the fact that you're executing punishment for people (rapist's, murderer's, etc) by getting rid of them, ie: bye killing. But to that guy, he's doing a good deed. Well. All in all, I agree with you, oh-Wise-One. Toodles