Creative Assessment

Why do the characters in The Road not have names?

I believe that it's not the fact that you don't end up relating to the characters, I just feel it ends up being unnecessary to have names. We are only following these two.

name  

/nām/

Noun A word or set of words by which a person, animal, place, or thing is known, addressed, or referred to.

Verb Give a name to: "hundreds of diseases with were isolated and named"; "she named the child Edward".

Adjective (of a person or commercial product) Having a name that is widely known: "name brands geared to niche markets".

Synonyms noun.   reputation - title - appellation - denomination - repute verb.   nominate - call - designate - appoint - term - denominate What is reputation to two people? You call someone by their name to differentiate them from a crowd of others. The world is so secluded that you needn't have a name. What is a name in a world where you don't matter anymore? What is a name in a burned, and dying world? A name can be seen as a confirmation of who you are. In this world, who is there to learn who you are?  You don't need someones name to become close to them. A name is a label. The Road doesn't need names. Whatever the reason McCarthy chose to not include names, this is just my take. It's like the Holocaust. Your name in unimportant. Only your number matters.  Last 2 on earth? Will you find what you were looking for? Were you actually looking for something? Were you finding a reason to live? Or were you just trying to distract yourself?

What's Your Fire?

Honestly, if I were in a post-apocalyptic situation, I would have no fire. Right now I really thrive on nature - in The Road, everything is absolutely covered in ash and dead; including the animals. Maybe my fire would be just to see what I could find. Yeah, that's probably what it would be.

Alberto: Ask me that question.
Me: What question? What's your fire?
Alberto: "You are my fire, the one desire, believe...when I say...I want it THAT WAY!"
...Oh Backstreet Boys haha.

Anyways. Yeah. I would be walking down this road just to see what I could find. Who could I find? Without dying of course...I'm not too sure I would want to be eaten. But that brings us back to where the woman didn't seem to want to keep this baby because it would either end up getting raped or eaten, as well as herself. Perhaps the question is rather not if you want to die by suicide (considered a sin?) to save your dignity (as in the simple contradiction here) or get killed, raped, and/or eaten.

The father was talking to his son about the gun being pointed up when he shoots to ensure he died.

What would I do in that scenario?

Sorry this is a little late...apologies to Mr. McCarthy as well.

I believe this post depends on whose perspective we're looking at this from. In the viewpoint of the father, the son, or just some other person who has just experienced this apocalypse too. 

I'll take it on from the view of some random person who has survived. I feel like many people, if not all, have thought about the difficulty of suicide would be if they were stuck in this situation. Perhaps I would end up living that lifestyle for a week, if even that, and decide that this was too overwhelming and painful to handle and I would end up suicidal and kill myself. But maybe even in this situation I'd rather die more "naturally" than have the guts to take my own life. I'd probably try to live though this day by day and figure out where to get food, of course. Are there others out there to help keep my sanity? Then again...the people seem to BE the ones you have to protect yourself from. 

I really want to add more but I'm currently eating and it's distracting.

Letter to Parents

Let me just start off by saying, parents, please show your kids that you are proud of them. It is a given that you love them, as it should be, but showing pride is a positive form of affection. When kids get to that tween age, I'm sure it'll be rough to show your love for them because they think it's all mushy, so instead, show pride. Don't just point out the bad that they do. At a young age, explain your reasons for things. Don't do that stupid thing of "Because I'm your dad/mom" or "because I said so". In all honesty, you're screwing yourself over with word association. They will associate "mom/dad/parent" with negativity. Psychological thing. Just take advice from the movie Parental Guidance (:

Instead of saying "don't" say "think of the consequences". Even though it may not seem like it sometimes, humans work on reason (with impulses of course). I remember something from another movie that says "if you don't let your kids out the front door, they'll only sneak out the back" and I think that, that is dead true. We will lie to avoid trouble because we think your punishment is so severe that...we just want to avoid it. Now what kind of trust building is that?

Parents. Just talk to your kids and ask them what they think. Don't let it go on every day if you think there is something wrong with your relationship. If you think therapy will help, go for it, but of course let them try it. If it doesn't work, don't force them to go back.

Listen.

Civic Duties

Well...I must say that my first choice was going to be to not curse in front of young children but I realized that that varies among cultures (as most things do). My apartmentmate and I had a talk about it and it could go either way. In a television series, Hit and Miss, set in England, most of the kids speak with curse words and such to the adults. Though, now that I think about it, the characters that I've heard it from are within the age range of 13-16.

Anywho, this is about the responsibilities of being a citizen. This relates to the question of "is being a citizen a  choice". Cause, ya know, you don't really choose where you will be born and you can't always just up and leave. Even then, wherever you go, aren't you just an immigrant then? Well, at least for a little while til you get those ah-fi-shull documents that the word seems to revolve around.

As for me, I'm not sure what civic duties I will fulfill. So far it seems the only ones I have, have been PAYING TAXES. Taxes are so lovely...especially when you already work .25 above the minimum wage. But I did get the awesomely crowded buses and pot-holed streets. Those are always a plus.

Oh taxes. What civic duties to have bestowed upon me.

Is poverty a choice?

pov·er·ty
/ˈpävərtē/

Noun
The state of being extremely poor.
The state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.
In this definition, being in poverty can definitely be a choice depending on the person. There are many people like Helen King, who refuse to become a "charity case" and would rather rely on themselves. In terms of whether it's right or wrong because she has so many kids...in some ways it teaches them to be independent. From what we've read, I see no signs of suffering. I mean, if they were constantly saying that they were hungry and eating the roaches that come out at night, then I'd be worried. But they get along just fine the way they are.

I like that Helen does what she does for the money, as it's something that it seems like she likes to do. As for the clothes, in my mind, I can picture miniskirts as not as short as we think they are. If I remember correctly, miniskirts were anything like...above the knees or something because skirts were knees and below. It seems to be, just an image of change - someone who isn't afraid to go against traditional Irish, no matter if her family ended up looking like tinkers. It's rather interesting how tinkers are outcasts like that, similar to Amish (in my understanding).

I think "poor" is a word that's been blown out of the water in the first world countries. There are many countries that survive with being extremely poor (monetary wise), but the curveball of being inferior in quality (such as water) could be a problem. The kids don't seem to suffer from this though, as it's still America and a tightly-knit community.

Fluff to think about...

To be honest, there is a LOT that can be discussed from the first parts of Malcolm X. I'm a rather spiritual person, not religious, however, I found the "story" of Yakub to be interesting. There are many other subjects to focus on in every day life that most of us do not stop to think about it (nor did I even know this story existed).

A little break: I'm laughing a little to myself. I'm trying to find a summary of the story and it's proving to be rather hard. But I clicked one of the citations from Wikipedia for Yakub and my work computer blocked it for the category of discrimination. It was just entertaining to me.

Anywho, I really can't find a summary of the story, but those of us who have read should know how it goes (:

The points that I never thought about were...the fact that white skin (I hate using "white" and "black" terms, but for the sake of this blog I will) can come from black skin but white cannot go to black. The process of bleaching and what not, but those of us who burn in the sun turn red, not black. However, it does say that white was the final stage and it went from something like...black - red - yellow - white, so perhaps white can become black...and bleaching is more of a chemical process than a "natural chemical" process.

Though it does start out the Yakub did this to create the evil white devils, however, this comes around to the argument of whether whites are considered of black race. Such as albinism that occurs in black people as well, are they considered black or white? Could this be applied to the "fact" or "theory" that our origins are that of Africa? If so, then why do the teachings of Islam in this book insist that white men are the devils, if it is only the color of their skin that sets them apart? Are they not acting just as irrationally racist as other races do towards each other? If the white man was created to be evil, then why punish the white man? Though, that in itself is another argument -- whether white men should be blamed for their actions or are they just programmed, so to speak, that way. Why is it that society revolves around getting back at each other for sufferings? I suppose human nature.

Ebonyy...and ivory...live together in perfect harmonyyyyy.

Are black and white colors?

"The answers:
1. Black is the absence of color (and is therefore not a color)
Explanation:

When there is no light, everything is black. Test this out by going into a photographic dark room. There are no photons of light. In other words, there are no photons of colors.

2. White is the blending of all colors and is a color.

Explanation:

Light appears colorless or white. Sunlight is white light that is composed of all the colors of the spectrum. A rainbow is proof. You can't see the colors of sunlight except when atmospheric conditions bend the light rays and create a rainbow. You can also use a prism to demonstrate this."Now I'm not too sure on what relevance this has, but I just figured I'd put that out there.

I like this link. 

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

- Gandhi, Fischer, Powell, King

Variations of the quote, of course.

Food for thought: if colors we perceive are produced by the rejection of color (example: an apple is red because it rejects red and absorbs) then are blacks white and whites black? Or does it really have a specific color if colors are absorbed?