Words vs. Actions

The story of the father and son is complicated, yet simple. Their relationship is stranded, yet as close as it can be. This is all because of the dad’s actions. He consistently put his son first, trying to protect him from the outside world, but the son sees through it. On their journey, the son finds out what the harsh reality of the post-apocalyptic world they live in is, and the reality of who his father is. They encountered a lot of danger throughout their journey. There were several times they had to run away from danger as a result of the people coming to take their stuff. The dad told his son, “Dont look back there. Look at me. If you call out you’re dead.” (pg. 63) as when you stop to assess the situation, that’s when you’ll get caught. This was the first moment of reality for the son, as before that, his dad had successfully kept him in a bubble. The pressure of living in this world was immense. The constant looking over their shoulders to make sure no one was following them or hiding from loot seekers so they didn’t take their stuff was getting to the father. “If you’re on the lookout all the time does that mean you’re scared all the time? Well, I suppose you have to be scared enough to be on the lookout in the first place. – Do you always expect it? Papa? I do.” (pg. 151) This was the first real look into the mindset of the father outside of thinking about his son. It’s the first thing he shared with his son that opened to door to the real world, and it made me wonder; if he’s so scared of letting his son in on the truth about society, why tell him this? It made me realize that the dad was trying to teach his son how to live on his own but in a P.G. kind of way.
When a man tries to steal everything they own, the father catches him in the act. He puts a gun in the man’s face and tells him to strip, giving them everything he had on him. The son realizes that the dad wanted to do more than just take back what was theirs. He begged his dad to just let the man go, but the dad let his anger win (at least I think he killed him). The son is devastated, unwilling to speak to his father about anything. This is when the son came to a conclusion about the kind of man his father was. He realized that his dad had become a victim of society and that he wanted to be nothing like his father. Throughout their journey, the father had been sick. He was constantly coughing and taking breaks to catch his breath, and eventually, it came to a head. The father knew he was dying, and the son didn’t know what to do. He was overwhelmed with emotions, and couldn’t imagine his dad leaving him. “He slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke up in the morning his father was cold and stiff.” (pg. 281) The son stayed by his father for days but finally decided to venture up the road. He ran into a man on the road and when they went back to where his father laid to rest, the man from the road told the boy he needed to keep moving. The son wanted to bring his father with him, but the man told him how unrealistic that was. He said his final goodbyes and off he went. These moments shaped the way the son views the world because of the son’s connection to the events. Everything the dad was doing was for his son, and the son knew that which I think is part of the reason he was so upset with a lot of the things his father did. He was protected from the bad things in the world for so long that when he encountered them, he didn’t know how to handle them. He looked up to his dad when the book started, and at the end, he couldn’t have wanted to be more different.