The Road: Close Reading

While reading the The Road I have wondered if the main characters would ever run into anybody living.  Finally they find a man limping along the road.  Then, with the boy wanting to help, an argument comes about.  This is the first type of dispute between the man and the boy that would actually affect their relationship and communication with each other.
The young boy asks more than once "Can we help him Papa?" but he was just shot down by his father each time (50).  The next morning the father wants to justify himself and he says "There's nothing we could have done" and the boy did not respond (52).  The father briefly explains himself and the situation to his son, and then all seems to be well.
This back and forth kind of argument, I feel, reflects the amount of love the father has for the son.  I was able to sense just how much the father seemed upset over the fact that his son was mad and almost disappointed in him for not helping the man without hope. 
While this shows the father's love for his son, I feel it also shows a sense of hope.  To live without his son's good terms and approval there would be no reason to live, also.  He did not want to go on with his son upset at him, he wanted them to carry on with good terms which is a sign of strength and perserverance through their journey to the south.

Uglies

I would like to read Uglies by Scott Westerfield.  The book reflects how I feel our society would run things if it were allowed to do so.  Our society nowadays is so caught up on all looking the same in this “perfect” light and it appears that is what the idea of the book is also.  The character Tally is inspiring by the fact that she in a sense turns her back on becoming a “pretty”.  If an apocalypse occurred, I could see our society taking advantage of the little amount of people to transform it into a perfect community.  This book takes a very interesting and intriguing direction at what would happen if an apocalypse occurred.