The Road: The Making Of Decisions

We have to face decisions all the time. Normally taking a decision isn't a life changing event but there are cases where a single decision can affect the whole course of your life. When I am faced with an important decision I tend to think thoroughly of all the outcomes and balance it out to see with which one I will get the most benefit from. We constantly by making decisions we shape the road of our life but in the book The Road it is the environment and the pressure that affects the decisions. Decisions have to be taken measuring all the positive outcomes and negative outcomes but there are cases when the decision has to be taken in less time and the analysis step is skipped. The father made a bad decision and the narrator describes this by saying: "He walked back and sat beside the boy. It was desperation that had led him to such carelessness and he knew that he could not do that again. No matter what." (pg.117) The decision the father had to make in this case had to be done and fast because they couldn't waste any time analyzing the outcomes. The need of food was the engine that pushed the father into making a desperate decision that almost cost his life. If I were the father I probably would have risked my life for finding food because my son was very hungry and he needed that energy to survive. If he wouldn't have gone into the house in his mind there would always be the doubt if whether or not there was food inside. In the situation of the book I think that both decisions would have been negative because if they went in they risked capture but if they didn't go in they risked dying from hunger. If the father had analyzed these outcomes he would probably chose to save their lives and not enter but the instinct and the hunger drove him into a desperate decision.

There are also other factors that affect the person's decision taking ability. When you have somebody you love near you, you might want what is best for them. The father knowing that the best thing for his son was to get food he went inside. The boy just before his father entered the house said: "I'm not hungry, Papa. I'm not,"(pg.108) when he really was starving. In this moment the father knew that the kid was saying a lie to prevent that his father risked his life for food. I think that that lie motivated his father more because he loved his kid so much that he didn't mind risking his life to make him happy. Also I saw this part as a foreshadowing that something bad was going to happen. The repetition of the kid trying to make his dad back off the idea of entering made me predict that something bad had to happen. It was almost as if the kid jinxed the going into the house and his worst fears happened. Sometimes that happens for example when you play tennis and there is a very important point you have to win. If fear starts taking over you and you think that maybe you will hit the ball out, it will most likely happen because you are focusing your mind on the negative and therefore making the mistake.

The Road: Are Memories Good Or Bad?

Memory by definition is: the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memory), but it is also a lot more. Memories are the most important things in your mind because the memories are events that have happened in your life and by their importance you will remember them forever. Memories can also kill a person or make their life have some importance. A memory that could kill a person is the image of a loved person dying but a memory that can make a person's life be better is a happy moment with friends. In The Road both types of memories appear constantly in the father's life. Agreeing with the definition most memories are triggered by another event or object. One example of a memory is when the character's wife says: "A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart." (pg.57) This memory of his wife was triggered because his son had said that he wished he was with mom. The memory in this case is shown to the character by the means of his dreams. This is a memory that the character must be hurt when he sees it. Fighting for the life of three persons is really hard and the worst thing you can hear from one of them is that they don't want to live anymore and make you feel that all your hard work has been for nothing. I haven't personally had this experience but an example would be that when you are in a soccer team and you are constantly giving it your all for the whole team to win and everybody else in the team isn't trying and showing to you that they don't want to win. What probably happens next is that you lose hope and the desire to fight because the team you are sweating for isn't returning you the same amount of sacrifice. I really think that in that moment the mother had to be in an extreme degree of desperation to even think of abandoning her kid. Mothers are willing to risk their own life for that of their kids and in this case she is just abandoning his life.

The other kinds of memories are the ones that keep you positive and always hoping for a better future and outcome. The other memory he has of his wife is a more positive one and it is shown by the object that reminds him of her. The narrator says in one moment: "He pitched the sweatblackened piece of leather into the woods and sat holding the photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and they went on." (pg.51) Normally when a person has another person's picture in his wallet it is because the picture reminds him of this person and this person gives him hope and power to keep on going. The memory of his wife could have kept him going for a while, when he looked her picture. The moment when he leaves the picture in the road two different meanings came to my mind. One is that he has completely lost hope of his life and he just wants to give up. I think this is rather unlikely because he still gets the motivation to keep on going from his son which is the thing he loves most. The second meaning is the wanting to forget a memory that brings him down. I think the second meaning is more likely is that he wants to completely forget about her so he can look into the future and stop lamenting his past.

The Road: Surrounded By Hostile Environments.

There are days where simply things can't go any worse. That day everything happens to you and the more you try to make it better the more bad things happen to you. Some people say that it is only the way you look at the day that makes it feel like everything is bad but I say there are days where everything goes wrong. In these days you might fights with your parents, you might break up with your girlfriend, or you may have a very important competition or presentation and you will blow it. Fortunately this day is not very frequent and it doesn't last forever. Now imagine if that reality of having the worst possible things happening would never go away and will last for more than a simple day, and that situation is the situation in which the characters from The Road have to survive in. There has to be a moment where the pure desperation of nothing becoming better takes over the person's mind. One example of desperation is when the father says: "Will I see you at last? Have you have a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God." (pg. 12) This is a moment that by pure desperation of finding nothing to improve their lives the father screams for God and even starts questioning his heart and soul. This feeling of desperation and having nothing available to help you come out of the hole you are stuck in brings out the trust in God.

The Road is a book that since the beginning portrays the image of a world without hope and full of destruction. The first few lines say: "When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." (pg. 3) Since the book is starting with this lines of darkness and no hope, I can predict that the book will be focused on how the world is brought to pieces and how hope with the passing of each day gets smaller and smaller. Also when the book mentions the part of the child I think that in that situation where no one else is around the father and son are two different persons but at the same time one. If one of these two persons happens to die then the other immediately will also die. If the kid dies then I think the father will most probably commit suicide because in all that desperation and solitude his motivation to keep going is to take his kid to a better place, but if he is gone then the father would think his life is worthless. The kid will also die without his father because he wouldn't know how to survive in this hostile environment. I don't really know what will happen in this book but seeing that it has been made a movie I am thinking that it will be and action filled book with a happy ending because movies most of the times have happy or at least endings where people survive.

The Religious Tales

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe: The Fear Of Death

This poem done by Edgar Allen Poe had a clear objective which was being scary and trying to scare the reader. But the composition of the poem is much more complex than just a scary story. In The Raven, Poe uses symbols to give the story different meanings. The raven clearly is an object inside the story but he represents a lot more. I think the raven is symbolizing the fear of death. The character is trapped inside a house and the raven is controlling his mind and thoughts. The character thinks this: "Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." The fear of death is clearly shown in his thoughts because we can see how he wants to see angels and specially Lenore but the raven is saying to him never more. Lenore must have been a person that this character really loves and what he is trying to say is that he really more than anything wants to see her but the raven which is the fear of death says to him that if he dies he will nevermore see her again. This fear has controlled the character in such a way that he is vulnerable to the mind control of the raven when says: "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!" When the character says this he is lost and will see life nevermore. The way the narration of this poem was done was very good because it managed to scare the reader. I really thought this poem was similar to Psycho because it kept on growing in intensity and when it reached the highest point the story ended and also because it was intended to scare the audience.

The Pardoner’s Tale: The Curse Of Gluttony

Food is the most elemental thing a human can have. Food is necessary for a person to survive but it is not good for a person to live for food. If a person eats and drinks all day without moderation it is considered gluttony. I think that gluttony is the moment when the food physically can't enter into the stomach because it is so full but the person still eats this because he wants. It is the feeling of never stopping. No matter how much you eat and how full you are you won't stop eating. Gluttony plays an important part in The Pardoner's Tale when it says: "O glotonye, ful of cursednesse! O cause first of oure confusioun! O original of oure dampnacioun, Til Crist hadde boght us with his blood agayn! Lo, how deere, shortly for to sayn, Aboght was thilke cursed vileynye! Corrupt was al this world for glotonye." (498-504) This act of eating in excess was considered a very important sin and even considered a curse. When the character mentions that it was a corruption that affected the entire world I thought if today there was the same problem. Actually if you think of it there are many people who are currently dying of hunger and thirst and they die because their body can't get enough energy to survive. I think that gluttony is certainly bad because you are eating the food that could be served to a person that needs that food more. In the other hand I think it is less bad than ordering large amounts of food and only eating a little because the rest gets thrown to the trash. The other subject that was addressed in this tale was the pardoner's role. When he says: "It is an honour to everich that is heer That ye mowe have a suffisant pardoner T' assoille yow in contree as ye ryde, For aventures whiche that may bityde. Paraventure ther may fallen oon or two Doun of his hors and breke his nekke atwo. Looke which a seuretee is it to yow alle That I am in youre felaweshipe yfalle," (931-938) This part I thought was very important because it showed a little about the church at the time. All throughout tale the pardoner had told about death and how it appeared out of nowhere came to the point where he said that in order for people to be safe and that death didn't get them they had to pay him and pay honors to his holy artifacts. This shows a lot to me how the church was in that time because it was a must to give them money to be safe and be able to go to heaven. I think that the main purpose of any religion is to guide you spiritually but most importantly to teach you how to be a good person. If you are a good person who harms no one and has a strong set of values then I think it is unnecessary to have to pay to the church because in that time the church was very corrupt and only wanted money.

The Wife Of Bath’s Tale: Forget The Past And Accept The Present

The idea of the past or your ancestors doesn't matter and the only thing that really matters is the present is something that is present in this chapter. I have some opinions about this idea that support it but others that disapprove it. I think it is wrong to judge someone for his last name. I have seen cases when people say that a person must be annoying because his father or mother was annoying making him annoying. I do think that habits and ways of behaving are passed down through generations but I don't think it is correct to condemn a person by what I know about his family members. There is a part in The Wife Of Bath's Tale where the idea of forgetting the past and only accept the present is shown when the woman says: "That he is gentil that dooth gentil dedis. And therfore, leeve housbonde, I thus conclude: Al were it that myne auncestres were rude, Yet may the hye God, and so hope I, Grante me grace to lyven vertuously. Thanne am I gentil, whan that I bigynne To lyven vertuously and weyve synne." (1170-1176) In this part the woman is asking him to forget her past and accept her present which is good. If I were her husband I would forgive her of her past because the only thing that is important now is the way she is and behaves now and not the way her ancestors were. I agree that the past is an important key to figure out how each person is and learn his roots. Another way this idea was shown is when she says: "Possessioun that no wight wol chalenge. Poverte ful ofte, whan a man is lowe, Maketh his God and eek hymself to knowe. Poverte a spectacle is, as thynketh me, Thurgh which he may his verray freendes see." (1200-1204) Poverty is a state in which a person is born to. The person didn't make a wrong decision that affected his life he was just born into it and had nothing to do and change it. I really think it is bad to judge a person by his economical state because it isn't the money that counts in life, it is rather the values and moral composition of the person. When she says that in poverty one learns to look life through a different glass it must be true. When poverty exists there are many things that aren't good about it and the need for this person to overcome these problems probably sets a new vision of the world rather than a person that has gotten everything he wants in his life without having to work for it in any way. I would definitely agree with the idea that it doesn't matter if the roots and ancestors of one person are bad if this person is good.