Why is the Road Rat's character so explicit whilst the man is so implicit?

The man's character is implicit to represent how the man tries to cut himself from his humanity so detatches from any personality or human part of himself in order to survive and not be repressed by any personal preferences/opinions etc. This separates the man (and the boy) from the other characters in The Road and expresses how they are different from them.

On the other hand the character of the Road Rat is made so explicit as to attach the events of The Road to a world forgotten to the characters and connect to American culture. The Road Rat is described as 'lean, wiry, rachitic' and 'dressed in a pair of filthy blur coveralls and a black billcap' which characterises him as a stereotypical 'redneck' character which connects The Road to a key feature in typical American culture (a 'redneck' being the stereotyped image of an American). This means that by featuring this redneck character McCarthy is mythologising the past and combining the world of The Road to the lost world destroyed by the nuclear blasts.