Cruelty is what leads rough men to willingly throw live snakes into a roasting fire and stand by while they thrash, scream, twist, burn. And indifference and lack of altruism leads them to walk home to supper, minutes later, as if it were just an ordinary day.
This is a memory that clogs the man’s mind, a memory that took place when he was his son’s age. God knows in what circumstances and his reasons for witnessing said atrocity in the first place, but there must be a reason the recollection is so distinctly exposed.
Snakes are a symbol for evil. Adam and Eve and just the fact that the food chain and Animal Planet portray them as sinful, wicked creatures leads towards this denotation. So the destruction of evil, the burning and suffering of wickedness, is taken as a good thing and even praised. The man recalls this memory, and I have yet to know why. Maybe he’s merely seeing the indifference with which we view death when we find it just and deserved. And in a way it makes life easier to deal with, and it makes the suffering and emaciated people somewhere down the road, or the carcasses on the rubble streets seem less impacting. Less traumatizing.
He and his son happen to come across some imprints and corpses scattered around. When the man tries to shield his son from said sight, and tells the boy, “I don’t want you to look,” the boy responds with, “They’ll still be there.” This brings us to the topic of turning a blind eye. When you know something is obviously and clearly there, but its existence affects you negatively, we sometimes try and make ourselves believe its not their. We lie to ourselves to protect our wellbeing. But not acknowledging something won’t make it all the less real. The boy sums up a concept that plagues us everyday. No matter how hard you try to pretend or not believe something, it will still be there. You might as well accept things as they are.
After the treading past the dead-infested woods, they make their way through the country, Cormac describing them to a T: “The country went from pine to liveoak and pine. Magnolias. Trees as dead as any. He picked up one of the heavy leaves and crushed it in his hand to powder and let the powder sift through his fingers.”
Nature in general, trees, represent life. They symbolize the act of growing, living and existing. So the man and son are actually walking through a road of life, longevity, and immortality. The liveoak being such a twisted and spaced-out tree, demonstrates the twists and warped courses one takes while alive. The magnolias represent perseverance, blooming in an all-out lifeless world. This walk through the country seems like a positive outlook and reassurance for both characters. But then we find that the trees are dead. Life has departed. Just its ashes remain. But the man lets the ashes of life slip through his fingers. In a way, this means he is not truly grasping the fact that life can end so easily. He still has hope.
And that’s all he needs.
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