“See the child.”

The opening sentence is an order that establishes the role of the reader as a witness to the life of the protagonist. Just as the kid is forced to bear witness to the crimes of Glanton’s gang and the violence of the world he inhabits, the reader is called upon to focus their judgment on the kid. The first sentence is a commandant, bringing the purpose of the novel into sharp moral relief: the kid must be seen and, as Holden demands, the kid must be judged.

“He saddled up the mule, the mule’s back galled and balding, the hooves cracks. The ribs like fishbones. They hobbled on across the endless plain.”

The mule’s arduous journey is a metaphor for existence. Just as the mule is burdened by packages and afflicted by old wounds, the rider on its back deals with emotional baggage and symbolic, traumatic scars that function as heavy burdens. The plain, like life, seems endless and the mule and its rider have no choice but to continue forwards. They bear the heavy weight because they cannot imagine existence as anything other than a seemingly endless burden that must be endured.