Please discuss pages 34-71 in this thread.

This section contains the scene where the man empties his wallet and disposes of his ID on the road and, most significantly, the picture of his wife. I think this serves as a marker in the book that the man and son are completely alone and the father is completely responsible for protection of his son, certainly a daunting task in this horrible and threatening environment. The disposing of his ID underscores his loss of place or status in the world and simultaneously reinforces the picture that all systems that society depends on have collapsed. The loss of his wife and the boy's mom, both in real terms and as represented by leaving the picture, I think really emphasizes how alone they are and how much peril the boy is in. I was wondering as I read this book how the author would deal with the theme of a 'child in peril' -- does the child die in this story? I think death of children can be a difficult story line for authors to handle but there is the trap of walt-disneyish, happily ever after story telling that is just sort of goofy and wreck the whole story.