The Road

Section 5 pages 49-60 question 9

Why is the memory of the boys birth as important to the man as his wife's suicide?

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The man remembers his wife's suicide in conjunction with his son's birth. There was a fatalistic feeling with both of them. The wife had internalized the apocalypse and, after rational thought, knew that her end had come. She actually knew all of them should have died earlier because the waiting to be raped, beaten, and eaten by human animals was no way to die. Similarly, the boy looked red, raw, and sickly at his birth. He was born into the end of the world. His birth shared the fatalistic vision of his mother.