Journal Entry 1 – The Road
From the very style of the writing, from the short paragraphs and choppy sentences lacking punctuation, the readers feel a permeating sense of hopelessness – why punctuate when all hope is lost? The surroundings described are ashen – sparse, barren. Lifeless. The only glimpse we have into this desolate place is through our unnamed main characters: a father and his son. We see many instances of the father’s strong paternal instincts, though he also seems to displays maternal instincts – perhaps as a side effect from the loss of his wife. It is not prevalent, but it makes me wonder about his mental state (this interest is also piqued by the recurring dreams that are mentioned – dreams of a translucent, grey, cave-dwelling creature).
"[...]they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark." (3-4)
In the aftershock of a completely obliterated world, I would not expect many to keep a grasp on reality, but the father interests me in that he exhibits rationality and irrationality (perhaps furthered by nostalgia) along with his coexisting paternal and maternal instincts. For example, at the gas station, he attempts to call his own father, which is irrational – his father is likely dead. However, upon leaving, he quickly returns to collect motor oil for their lamp – a rational action following soon after an irrational thought. His behaviour brings to mind, for some reason, the ability of some animals in nature (in a homogenous male or female environment) to spontaneously change sex in order to preserve the species – or in this case, to care protect his existing lineage. In this case, his strong paternal feelings and his need to constantly guard his son (no matter how justified) are distinctly masculine, whereas his somewhat delusional nostalgic actions and his agreement to read the child a story despite the highly dangerous environment that they live in is distinctly (if less so than the previous example) feminine. Although I’m sure that this early into the novel I will be unable to come to a conclusion concerning his nature, it intrigues me and I will definitely focus on conflicting feelings of maternity and paternity.
The child, in contrast, is an intriguing character as well solely because of his behavior. Though his silence and practicality is a common result of great tragedy (loss of his mother, obvious global [continental?] catastrophe), his still somewhat childish nature interests me. Though thrown into a situation where he must live in constant paranoia considering other humans, must wear a face mask constantly and has a somewhat detached father, he still finds curiosity in simple things such as binoculars and joy in simple things (reading as story by lamplight). I wondered briefly and therefore wish to expand on the passing idea that perhaps the child’s behavior is directly influenced by his father’s – or at least is meant to influence his father. Because of the man’s serious nature, the hopelessness of the situation and his questionable mental state, perhaps the child purposefully maintains traits from his stolen childhood to keep his father grounded to reality – snapping him out of a daze in the gas station and asking for the aforementioned stories by lamplight despite the danger associated with being visible when the sun goes down.
I have a feeling that without the child there to distract him, the man would likely be dead by now – his parental instincts to care for this child seem to be prominent in all thoughts grounded in present reality, and without the child’s well-being to distract him from the state of the world, I feel that the man would have wasted away with his grief. Essentially, the child is his anchor in reality: and I feel that the child may purposefully be behaving the way he does specifically in order to ground his father to the present time.
I wonder if a sense of paternal duty can be more prominent in a human than his sense of self-preservation. I hope to discover this as I continue reading.
Returning to the aforementioned dreams of a translucent cave-dwelling beast, the man mentions that in his dreams, the child leads him by the hand through the tunnel until they come upon the creature. It occurred to me for a short moment that this could be a metaphor for his usually suppressed emotions of fear (and it also cements my curiosity about the child being the father’s only link to reality). The child leading him through the tunnel symbolizes the supporting personality and his desire to follow along with the needs of his son and support him – the tunnel is “the road” (dark, dangerous, unknown). The creature is their destination – indistinguishable and unknown. Skittish. They may reach their destination to realize that it is not what they imagined or that they may not get to their destination – perhaps they will, in fact, find that they are farther away than they think. Perhaps the creature will attack them. This dream, I believe, represents these things – the fear of the man and the devotion to his son, the ambiguity and danger of their journey, the insecurity concerning what they will ultimately find. If not, then I predict that it is, at the very least, metaphorical foreshadowing.
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