Section 14 pages 168-180 q 7

 By the time the story takes place, politics becomes irrelevant. For whatever reasons, the world is dead. One of my favourite quotes from the novel alludes to the boy as a Christ-figure,   "He knew that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God never spoke." (chapter 1)   Despite humanity now nothing but marauding sociopaths and dying old men, the boy has an inherent sense of empathy which often baffles the man. Walking through a landscape that might look like Hell, the boy continually shows kindness and even hope for mankind.