Meanings.

1	This is a novel less about survival than about the relationship between a father and his son.
2	McCarthy needed something that is no longer present to represent life as it used to be in the time before.
3	The man and woman represent the different ways in which humanity might react to such a situation.
4	This is a novel about minute by minute survival. Showing the man resisting the temptation of his memories brings this home to the reader.
5	The woman has a powerful and ambiguous symbolic function in the novel: she represents both the giving of life and the temptation of death.
6	There is no space in this pared back narrative of survival for a third main character.
7	The vulnerability of the boy would seem far less evident if his mother were there as well.
8	For the man, the woman’s absence is a constant reminder of the alternative to struggling to survive.

Most important to least, 5, 8, 3, 2, 4, 7, 1, 6

6.Least-  "there is no space in this pared back narrative of survival for a third main character " 

Since the novel is not solely based upon the relationship between the man and the boy ( as there is a clear purposeful lack of emotion shared between them, until the end ) another character would not dramatically change the novels main objective which is to survive and reach the end of the road, yes the character would impact their survival chances being they would consume their food but the woman would still be submissive and obey to the mans control and direction so the journey and paths taken would not dramatically change.

Important

The woman has a powerful and ambiguous symbolic function in the novel: she represents both the giving of life and the temptation of death.

" in dreams pale bride came to him out of a green and leafy canopy " His wife coming to him in his dreams expresses the life within the subconscious of the man, rather that being in a dead world the only sense of life he experiences are within his dreams and day dreaming, however she being dead , yet in an obvious subliminal tranquil (forever) state shows the temptations within death- being able to live so wondrously and freely within the mind of someone else after death- rather than being alive in a dead world- hopeless and doomed for eternity. The temptation of this is shown when the said " the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death " he expresses how these apparent pleasant dreams of his wife within nature, greenery contrasting to his dead gray world, are nothing but a spite against him, a temptation and that he should of dream of peril, should dream of his dead world rather than be spited by an alive world within a subconscious unreachable place.

5- As a feminist you could argue for a females role to be taken to the book as they are being misrepresented or not involved, only used for ability to birth children, to eat. but in reality it is the woman who is depicted as the most aware of her surroundings, she realises her impending doom and hopelessness of the world so decides to kick the bucket, this linking to how life is given in death, she increased their chances of survival.