Key Episode 4- The Baby on the Spit

Key Episode 4- The Baby on the Spit

Within this episode, after the boy finds this horrific image, there is a certain maturity and detachment that the boy begins to convey.  From the beginning we see that he is becoming more aware of his surroundings when he questions “why don’t we just wait” and he is also “wide with fear” which could convey that he still has a naturalistic response to seeing horrific and uncertain atmospheres, unlike his father who has become almost a figure of the “walking dead”.   I think that, before the boy witnesses what humanity is capable of, we still see a vulnerable, cautious and hesitant appearance of him as he is asks, “Can I hold your hand” and he “clutches it”. However, there is a contrast, the boy almost loses the remains of his childhood sinlessness, and the man even questions whether the boy will speak again.  McCarthy conveys an insight to the boys mind when the boy’s first words after the incident are “if we had that little baby” which means that this thought hasn't left his mind and perhaps will forever be in his memory.  Also, as they are walking along there is a reference to how the boy used to pick up toys and items but, “he didn't do that anymore”. He may have lost hope to see the significance of the world around him.  The father begins to fade within the narrative, implying that he is losing strength and will, and the boy becomes a more authoritative figure by advising him, “you drink some papa” and “I don’t want to. It’s okay”.  The father could feel guilt towards his son for being responsible to this progressive change as he “sat staring into the coals”.  I found that one of the most impacting sentences within this entire novel for me personally was the section within this episode of, “He stopped and stood watching, biting his lip.” The father watches his son run ahead and I feel that it captures the emotions he feels towards his little boy who has already been through so much and will inevitably be without him one day.

The description of the dark scene through abrupt short sentences portray a finality of life and there isn't a large build of tension or climax, just the imagery of something horrific which I feel is more shocking as it truly outlines the injustice.  He baby is called a “thing” connoting that it is not even human and before they even approach it, “they could smell it” which is ironic as they are smelling their own flesh.  The sickening expression of the baby as “headless, gutted and blackening," portrays that it was treated as an animal. McCarthy’s language choice of “charred human infant” impacts the reader into seeing the immorality of these actions and how it was just left like this. The mention of the word “rotation” may be invoking the thought of the rotation of the baby on the spit to provide rhythm to the structure of the sentences or it could also indicate to the circle that the son and father are trapped in. They cannot help others and others cannot help them.   The juxtaposition within this of them afterwards sitting at the river, describes a simplicity of nature and the pathetic fallacy of “the leaves were crunchy, fell to powder” refers to how nothing is happening and they are drained from the life being sucked out of them.  The negative imagery with the words “flat”, “motionless”, “plain”,” wasted”, “abandoned” and “trackless” paints a picture of somewhere without life and somewhere that is decaying with no hope of survival which runs throughout the novel. 

The morality that has been destroyed is shocking and makes the reader question how far these humans would go to survive.  They will find a last resort to their starvation and lead to the killing of their own kind purely to continue their own existence.  Is survival worth it is a person has to become evil in order to achieve it? It is interesting how when the man and the boy approach the other people they run off as they saw they had a gun which could imply that they would have been seen as the bad people as they were the ones with the threatening weapon? The father and son are always searching for somewhere safe, “we have to keep going” to escape from all the evil around them but there is a high chance that the place they are searching for doesn't exist; their journey could be seen as hopeless as they are running from something that is consuming everything and everyone and there is nothing that they can do other than prolong it.