Ending..
When does the end begin, in my opinion...
-When they reach the beach. (230)
'He could see the disappointment in his face'
'im sorry it's not blue, he said' - They were hoping that when they reached the south there would be a little joy for them seeing colour. They were searching for that little bit of hope.
'out their was the grey beach' - limited linguistic pallate.
desolation of some alien sea breaking on the shores'
'vast and cold and shifting'
Links
Loss of hope: It links to when the mother commits suicide. There is a loss of hope as the world cannot carry on without women reproducing.
There is also Loss of hope because she gave up on them. She couldn't handle living in a world of fear and darkness.
Themes
- Hopeless
-Disappointment
-Danger
-Anger
-Depressing
-lonliness
McCarthy bring the novel to a close by raising further question's in the mind of the reader.
For example..
-Is he safe with this new family?
-Are they going to try to kill and eat him.
-Can they be trusted?
-Do they simply just want to protect and care for him?
-Will they rape him?
Why i chose the beach as the beginning of the end...
Throughout the whole of the book, they are trying to get to the south.They finally make it when they arrive at the beach. It is the anti-climax of the novel. The beach is where they were always trying to get too.
The beach is the man and the boys final destination together. The time they have together there is important as it is their last before the man will die. It is the most key setting as it is where the book ends.
The man says 'im sorry it's not blue', he has promised his son that they will be happy when they reach the south but it is just the same again. As if they are searching for colour, it is like there search for hope. The colour would have been something nice to look at instead of the same bleak world.
There are dead fish washed up on the shore. This shows that now the world is hopeless as everything is destroyed. It could also represent no hope being left for them. When they reach the beach all hope vanishes. This was their last chance.
Now the man knows their is no hope he doesn't care about the journey .He never manages to fulfil his duties that have been building up throughout the novel.His duties have been haunting him throughout the book and before he dies he can't even manage to go through with the killing of his son.It is too hard for him and it shows the first part of emotion in the novel.

I find the ending disappointing as i thought we would have a more definite look on the man and the boys life now.We are involved as the reader  so we hope for a happy ending.
I find it disappointing as the man just dies. We don't know what from he just slowly dies in his sleep. The boy then just leaves with a family he has just met. Nobody knows what happens. We are left to decide. It could be argued that McCarthy uses a Dues ex machine as the family at the end just fix everything for the boy and he isn't alone anymore. However this creates disappointment as we don't know what happens when the boy leaves with them...