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Playlist The Road: Shmoopversations 11 videos
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The Road Part 9: It's All Downhill 8840 Views
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Description:
It must be a heavy burden when you’re one of the few good people left in the world. Watch the video to learn how The Boy maintains his humanity. Though we’re guessing he wouldn’t be much fun in a Cards Against Humanity game...
Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:05
[ scream ]
- 00:06
The Road
- 00:07
It's All Downhill
- 00:08
a la Shmoop
Full Transcript
- 00:10
[ bird caws ]
- 00:11
What does the man do to the thief?
- 00:15
They have been carrying this cart throughout the entire book.
- 00:18
Pushing this shopping cart's kind of another
- 00:20
one of these constants in the book.
- 00:21
When they lose the cart, they lose their lives.
- 00:23
And a thief comes along and basically takes everything they have.
- 00:26
And the man and the son find the thief.
- 00:29
And the man basically holds a pistol to him and says,
- 00:33
"Take off your shoes. Take off your clothes.
- 00:35
Put them in the cart and then leave."
- 00:37
So he doesn't kill him. But he basically takes away
- 00:40
everything this guy had.
- 00:41
All you have is what you're wearing on you.
- 00:44
And shoes are such an important thing in the book.
- 00:46
Every time they lose their shoes, they need to try and find new ones.
- 00:48
They basically take this guy's humanity from him.
- 00:51
And, afterwards, it leads into another one of these discussions
- 00:54
between the man and the boy. And the boy is like,
- 00:55
"Why did we have to do that?"
- 00:57
And the man says, "We didn't kill him."
- 00:59
And the boy says, "Yeah, we did."
- 01:01
And you realize
- 01:03
this is all that guy had.
- 01:04
So they try to find the man but they end up just leaving
- 01:06
his clothes and shoes in the middle of the road
- 01:08
to give back in case he finds it.
- 01:10
But this is one of those moments where we see
- 01:13
the boy as,
- 01:15
again, the only living being with any humanity left in him.
- 01:20
And there's this one moment where the man says,
- 01:22
"I'm the one who has to worry.
- 01:24
I'm the one."
- 01:26
And the boy just looks back at him and says,
- 01:28
"No, I'm the one."
- 01:29
And you realize that, while the man is the one
- 01:31
who has to worry for the man and the boy,
- 01:33
the boy is the one shouldering the burden
- 01:35
of being good and being the only good left in the world.
- 01:39
So, yeah, it's really -- [ exhales ] It's rough.
- 01:42
Okay.
- 01:43
[ pen writing ]
- 01:45
What does the thief try to do to the man and the boy?
- 01:49
How does the man get the upper hand?
- 01:51
What does this mean for the thief?
- 01:54
How does the boy show his humanity?
- 01:57
What's the difference between the man and the boy?
- 02:06
Good job, boy. Way to stick it to the man.
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