Coming across the man who was struck by lightening. P.50-53.

This event talks about how the man and the boy come across a  man who has been struck by lightening as they walk down the road. The man who has been struck by lightening is severely injured, and it is clear that he is unlikely to survive, even if they do attempt to save him. The young boy adimant that they have to help him, yet the man is not influenced by what he knows is ethically right, but stays focused on the reality of the fact that the injured man was not going to survive, and they needed the food for themselves.

The man is simply acting this way because he knows that he can't help anybody, just as nobody can help him. In this situation, it is each to their own in the fight for survival. He knows that he has to be emotionless and distance himself and his son from others, so as to encourage them to fight for themselves.

He removes all traces of his identity, such as his credit cards, his drivers license and a photo of his wife, this shows how he is trying to forget who he once was, and the life that he had, because he knows that he can't go back to how it was. Instead, he must continue as he is and leave his old life behind. This act represents letting go and moving on.

This is the first event in the book where the boy and the man come across another person, and because of this the reader becomes more involved with the characters emotions and how they react as the novel usually just involves the man and the boy alone.

This event in the novel makes the reader feel sad and sympathetic towards the man who was struck by lightening, even though the characters don't show the same emotions. There is a sense of helplessness, as we know that the situation in which the characters are in, there is no way they can possibly help the man, but as readers we still wish there was a way they could help him, and we think that if they were under different circumstances, the boy and the man would save him.