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The Road Videos 11 videos

The Road Part 1: The Introduction
9365 Views

Well, the world has ended, which is a total bummer. We didn’t even get a chance to sell our super valuable Beanie Baby collection. We hope you’...

The Road Part 2: The Setting
12205 Views

The Road is full of emptiness and nobody knows where they’re going. So make a note to self, Shmoopers: when the apocalypse hits, grab a GPS.

The Road Part 3: Words
8884 Views

Always read The Road with a dictionary at hand, because you’re going to need it. Seriously. We’re not known to be perfidious (though we do have...

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The Road Part 7: Oasis 10663 Views


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Description:

The protagonists of The Road find a bunker full of water, food, electricity and a bed. If we found that bunker, we’d never leave. Do you think Pizza Hut delivers to bunkers? We’ll find out, for...sciencey reasons.


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:05

[ scream ]

00:06

The Road

00:07

Oasis

00:08

a la Shmoop

00:10

[ dog barks ]

00:12

Talk us through structurally what the bunker implies.

00:17

The bunker actually is a bright spot in the book.

00:20

And what's happening is they're kind of

00:23

walking along the road, they see a house,

00:25

they're walking through an apple orchard,

00:26

and then they find this hole in the ground.

00:28

It's kind of like the hatch in Lost where you're like, "What's inside?"

00:31

And they go in and it truly is an oasis.

00:34

It is. It has food, like canned goods like crazy.

00:38

It has water, electricity, a bed

00:41

for the boy to sleep in.

00:43

Clearly someone had the foresight

00:45

to create a safety bunker. And someone was like,

00:48

"Oh, if the world ends, this is where I'm gonna live."

00:51

Well, first of all, they can't stay,

00:52

because they know that someone will come along the road and find them.

00:54

They're kind of like a sitting duck.

00:56

But what's creepy about it is that these people --

00:59

Someone had had the forethought to create this bunker and

01:02

fill it with food and water and everything.

01:04

Those people are clearly dead.

01:06

They might be the people who they found earlier

01:08

being held for food.

01:10

And what happens is that the boy says,

01:13

"Do you think they're dead, Dad?" And the dad says,

01:16

"Yeah, I think so." And the boy says,

01:18

"Maybe we should thank them

01:20

for leaving us this food."

01:21

And there's just this moment where the boy basically

01:24

prays to these people who have

01:26

probably been cannibalized

01:28

to thank them for the food that they're being given.

01:31

And this is one of those moments where

01:32

we get the, "Is there a God? Is there not?"

01:35

This boy is praying to

01:38

cannibalized humans and thanking them for the food, instead of

01:41

God, who would not have done this to them.

01:46

[ pen writing ]

01:48

What is the bunker?

01:49

What does it say about its original owners?

01:53

What does the boy do when they find the bunker?

02:00

Archie... Archie Bunker, anyone?

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