?The man and the boy survive physically in the post-apocalyptic world by using their intellectual traits. The characters survive by being cautious, resourceful and manipulative. Throughout the book the characters in The Road are cautious and vigilant. They try to avoid any potential situations that could endanger their survival. In one part of the book while they are walking down the road the man notices some people and says “I think there is someone following us” (pg 162). He hides the food waste that they were throwing away so that the people following them would not know they had food. The man waits till it is dark to stop and lets the people that are following them get ahead of them so that they can both keep an eye one them. If the man had not noticed the people following them they would have ambushed them and tried to kill them for food. They people that were following them were revealed to be cannibals later on as they had a baby human carcass in one of their pots. “They kicked snow over the fire and circled and came back.”(McCarthy, pg 88). When the man notices tire tracks that indicate more people are traveling on the road, he plans to get off road and attempts to cover their tracks. He avoids any confrontation that could put them in danger. At one point the man and the boy are starving so they go inside to look for food. Desperation gets the better of the man and he abandons his cautiousness and that nearly got him and the boy killed as they found out that cannibals lived in the house. “Coming across the field toward the house were four bearded men and two women” (pg 94). The man and the boy had to run and hide. They were both so close to dying and it was all because they stopped being cautious for one moment. When the characters were cautious and vigilant they avoided all sorts of conflict that could damage their chances of survival. Secondly, the characters in The Road are also resourceful. It is starting to