Women.

Why are women are included so little?
To doom humanity to an end, no women means no reproduction therefore no continuation of humanity.
She is not mentioned because the boy is dependant on his father.
The woman is rarely mentioned because she is dead. Her memory is painful for the man so he isn't likely to talk about her.
The novel suggests that in order to survive you have to be a man and be strong, we can criticise the novel because of this negative presentation of women as weak, this is because the boys mother may be the strongest character within the book as she has the strenght to accept that they will not survive and escape in an incredibly painful way. She also has to leave her family by breaking away coldly with no real goodbye, knowing she is leaving them in an evil world that will eventually consume them. It is men that are destroying the world. The other side of this is that the man had the strength to fight and struggle to survive and look after his child, he refuses to back down and admit that he cannot shoot his child and will eventually run out of life.

Page 17
Represents what is missing and the love the man longs for, perhaps the man wants to remember his wife in a good way but if he only remembers what he wants to forget then perhaps he doesn't want good memories as they bring him pain. He still loves her and no matter how coldly she left his love will always remain as it was cut off not ended (like the man in the laboratory and his lover 'can it ever hurt me'). Whenever anything good is present in the novel it is stamped out- 'call down your dark and your cold'

Page 54
The woman is presented ans naive and not very intelligent, this is suggested by the fact she is pregnant and holding onto the door frame. She is weak and vulnerable.
Themes- Survival, weakness of women.
Structure- A paragraph then three sentences this shows that everything is happening at once then there's a moment of confusion and time to reflect, it becomes slower.

Page 56
looks back to the theme of letting go, his wallet wore a hole in his trousers the contents of his wallet have worn a hole in him, a constant reminder of what he once had, he would be constantly conscious of the wallet and therefore everything he lost. He leaves behind the weight of his love for his wife.
The man has a quiet moment with his wife because he misses her. He says her name to himself, names are left out of the novel as no one has an identity.