The man and his son are so demonstrably complex in this story, even if their survival motives are simple and clear. Particularly, even as they endure a world of cannibalism and tribalism, the two struggle mightily to maintain a sense of moral turpitude, even to the point of impracticality.

This is perhaps the most tangibly real element of McCarthy's text, which focuses significant attention to the scorched landscape and its implications. In the passage where McCarthy introduces us to this landscape, he describes the man in a state of observation, telling that "when it was light enough to use the binoculars he glassed the valley below. Everything paling away into thte murk. The soft ask blowing in loose swirls over the blacktop. He studied what he could see. The segments of road down there among the dead trees. Looking for anything of color. Any movement. Any trace of standing smoke."...
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