The Road (Post 4, Question 4)

4. Consider both novels. What do you notice about the treatment of women? The characterization of women? Or the omission of women? What might it suggest or signify in either novel?

In the Road, Dean is clearly a big-time player. He's in multiple relationships, and he set up Sal with girls multiple times. This shows that he characterizes women as objects rather than human beings. We know this from the beginning of the book, when Sal remarks "to him sex was the one and only holy and important thing in life". I thought it was interesting that later in the book, Sal tries to pick up women constantly. For example, when he was staying with Remi and Lee Ann, he said "Meanwhile I began going to Frisco more often; I tried everything in the books to make a girl. I even spent a whole night with a girl on a park bench, till dawn, without success". I found it interesting how he first criticized Dean's valuing of sex in his life, while later he himself associated having a girl with a perfect life without troubles.

We see a different side of Sal when he goes on to say "I walked by a jewelry store and had the sudden impulse to shoot up the window, take out the finest rings and bracelets, and run to give them to Lee Ann. Then we could flee to Nevada together". It was certainly an extreme thought, taking into consideration both the magnitude of such an act, and the fact that Remi already "given a speech" about how he didn't want them (Sal and Lee Ann) to play around when he wasn't looking. I thought it was kind of humorous because this thought Sal had was based off of his assumption that Lee Ann's only goal in her life was to marry a rich man.