And take these fools with ye" (7). When the auctioneer responds by telling Lester that the property is no longer his, he responds"The hell it ain't" (7). Unable to understand the logic behind the situation, when the house is ultimately taken from him, he is in disbelief:"Lester never could hold his head right after that," being faced with an experience that is beyond his realm of understanding (9). The fact that losing his home after not paying mortgage leaves him puzzled and ashamed demonstrates his lack of social awareness. After being forced out of his home, Lester moves into an abandoned cabin in the woods to fend for himself. Alone in the forest Lester becomes detached from the human community, only observing from afar when people park their cars in the woods to have sex. In one scene, Lester peers into a car window to watch a teenage couple have sex: "On buckling knees the watcher watched" (20). Once he is spotted, Lester runs back into the forest. Although Lester's actions are unsettling and perverted, McCarthy describes Lester as a primitive, helpless being as he flees the area: "a misplaced and loveless simian shape scuttling across the turnaround as he had come, over the clay and thin gravel and the flattened beercans and papers and rotting condoms." (20). McCarthy's description of Lester running into the forest is comparable to an animal being forced into a filthy pen. The depiction of Lester as a loveless, primitive being distances him from his perverted actions, making us more accepting of him as a character despite his perverted action.
Lester illustrates childlike behavior during the scene where Lester is playing games at the country fair. Lester wins three giant stuffed animals that become very precious to him. When he moves into the cave, he stores them on his mattress as opposed to the wet floor, valuing them the way way a child would.