Pg 1-29

We wake to a dismal world. We do not know what has happened to it but it is made clear that it is a nightmare by the Man's nightmare. The garage they pass has nobody living there - though they are careful to check.

We are introduced to the key to characters here- The unnamed narrator (Man) and his son (Boy). The only other character we refer to are Man's father and the Alabaster Monster.

Man: we see him being protective of the boy - the first thing he does on awaking is reach out and touch the boy, perhaps to reassure him that he is there and breathing. We also see the Man as someone who is resourceful - he returns to the garage to get oil from the empty cans- this he will use to burn the lamp.

We start the narrative in the middle of the story here. We do not know know what has happened to the world we just see them moving South along the road. We see them enter an abandoned garage and pick up the phone to dial a number and collect oil from a drum and then after walking they sleep. The first three dots see to signify the end of the 'first day'.

We note here there are not chapter headings, little use of standard punctuation, eg speech marks. Are we looking at a blurring of standard boundaries - part of the end of the world scenario that we follow in the plot?

The tone is dismal. We see the fires and destruction. We start with the Man's nightmare vision of teh Alabaster monster. There is little sense of hope; yet there is the light of the love between the father and the son. The Boy trusts the Man and the Man says he lives for the the Boy. We also see that in the way the Man automatically reaches for his own father when he rings at the garage.

We have no chapters - each page flows endlessly without any apparent demarcation- perhaps like the road itself. The three dots mark the passage of time only so much as the mark the end of the day.(?) We start not only in a nightmare world but with the Man's nightmare. We also see the sense of hope in moving south along the road. (Though the man admits that this is possibly without hope.) We also see them get oil for their lamp - which will bring light and also opportunity to read- remnants of the old world?

Light - the garage scene here shows that light is important a theme that will later be picked up with the Boy ' carrying the flame'.

The Road - The road is the only direction they are following. They only know it goes south. The road is a reccurent image in American 'literature'. It signifies freedom (Jack Kerouac) and finding relationships (