Symbolism

There was something I read pretty early in the novel that I wanted to blog, but I did not get around to doing it, so I decided to go back to it. When the Man and the boy are in a supermarket, and they find a coke. They share it and both think that it is probably the last coke they will ever drink. When you read about it, it seems like some ancient piece of history that they find, kind of like someone discovering an ancient artifact from a different time. It also symbolizes how deprived the characters really are in that time. Today, we would take something like a coke for granted, because it is so readily available. For the Man and the boy however, food is scarce, and finding a coke seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity.