In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the boy and his father carry the fire within themselves. This image of fire is the true nature of their courage to continue on the road to the unknown. The father teaches his son how to carry the fire at first with his help, then, later without him. In turn, the boy keeps the fire alive within the man. The man is molding and stoking the fire within the boy, by his telling the stories of the old world and creating the sense of right and wrong in the boy. Throughout the novel the feelings the man has for his son are sacred; the man makes great sacrifices for his son to continue to live and have a future in a world that has been devastated and stripped of all humanity. The boy is the only source of light for …show more content…
When the man and boy meet people on the road, the boy has sympathy for them, but his father is more concerned with keeping them both alive. The boy is able to get his father to show kindness to the strangers (McCarthy), however reluctantly the kindness is given. The boy’s main concern is to be a good guy. Being the good guy is one of the major reasons the boy has for continuing down the road with his father. He does not see there is much of a point to life if he is not helping other people. The boy wants to be sure he and his father help people and continue to carry the fire. The boy is the man’s strength and therefore courage, but the man does not know how the boy worries about him how the boy’s will to live depends so much on his …show more content…
The boy is a symbol of hope for the future of the world and he is proof that some humanity still exists in this dark world. The thief sees this in the boy, since McCarthy describes him seeing something “very sobering” to him in the child’s face. The boy wants to be the good guy so badly that he does not want to hurt their enemies, a fairness that the father finds hard to advocate. The boy symbolizes hope and the innocence and goodness in this new and acrid world. The goodness in the boy is one even his father cannot understand; a goodness buried deep within the boy. The imagery of fire continues in the story; the building of their fires, how the man molds the fires, and how they stoke the fire. When the boy gets sick the father is referred to many times of how he builds and rekindles the fire. This actual fire is a symbol for the fire that the man and the boy discuss carrying within in them. The man fights to save his son and the fire within the boy
The novel “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi tells us as readers narratives of different people that tie together through genealogy. This story also significantly focuses on the psychological side of a few characters such as Maame and, mainly in the end with Yaw. Throughout the story, something that really intrigued me was the Motif of fire: how it is portrayed during times of trauma, how it shows the significance of anxieties symbolically throughout the story, and how it also ties back to the family lineage of Effia in dreams.
It concerns violence in the society as an essential social concept in the story that needed to be observed. The man and his boy, however, decide not harm others unless violence is required for their survival. There are many elements to this novel that mean a lot more than it appears to. As it exhibited by the author in the story, the father consciously formed his character and his response to the conflict between self and society when he talks to his son and says, “You,” he reminds the kid, “are no stranger to that feeling, the emptiness and the despair. It is that which we take arms against, is it not?” (Robinson 89). His brave is measured by different social facts such as honesty, tolerance, and optimism to express a personal value and follow an individual goal instead of the opposing with the
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate on the mind on the present moment. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a man and his son, who remain unnamed throughout the novel, are on a journey heading south after an unnamed catastrophe has struck the world. The conditions they face are unforgiving: rotting corpses, fires, abandoned towns and houses. The man and his son are among the few living creatures remaining on Earth who have not been driven to murder, rape, and cannibalism. Unfortunately, the father’s health worsens as they travel, and by the time they reach the ocean, he passes away. The boy remains by his side for days until the boy meets a kind family who invites him to join them. The boy must say goodbye to his father,
The author’s message can be built off of the fact that fire, like everything else, can be used for good purposes when the factors are correct; such as the people, the environment, and the level of humanity. Fire commonly symbolizes a tool to enforce ignorance upon society, though when merged with creativity and nature, it can be warming and ignite one’s creativity. “It was not burning, it was warming. He saw many hands held to its warmth, hands without arms, hidden in darkness” (Bradbury 139). This instance shows that fire is very powerful, and hands are very powerful, but creative and humane hands have power over fire. A good comparison would be a demon and a very religious person -- demons have lots of power, but the person can resist temptation because they have a greater force on their side, which is just like creative hands, which have the power of humanity, happiness, love, and knowledge on their side, which can overcome the power of fire and ignorance and stay humane. Another way the author merges fire with hands/nature to further expand his message about creativity is by showing what happens when the two combine. The fire starts warming instead of burning, which proves the major theme in the novel.
I perceive the value of human life as invaluable. Your text enables me to envision how life would be without the comfort and security of civilization. The man’s views on life are judged by his experiences and his sole objective is to keep him and the boy alive. The father repeatedly promises himself and the boy that he would do anything for him. “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.” (pg 80).The boy returns the act of concern that the man has for him. The boy puts a large emphasis on that the man also must eat and drink ‘you to’. His compassion and willingness to help others in need brings conflict between him and his father. “Cant we help him? Papa? No. We cant help him.” (pg 51) The difference of the father’s practicability and the boy’s compassion is predominant. The text reinforces the idea that all life is sacred and important.
The man knew that his end was near but the fear of leaving his son alone in the world defenseless kept him going. The son was a constant reminder to his father of what remained of human kindness and together they kept on facing the hardships of what the world had to
Hope rescues their lives. Differently from the people who give up their lives, such as the man’s wife, who is completely despairing and walks out of the house to death of her own accord, the father and the son choose to seek for survival, because they have hope inside. Actually at first, there is a time that the father has an idea to end their lives, and he teaches the son how to put the gun into his mouth. “If we were going to die would you tell me? I don’t know. We’re not going to die.” (p94) The boy is the father’s fire in heart, his hope. We can see the inner struggles of the father by the contrasts of the dreams and the reality. The first paragraph of the book shows the depression and fear of the father. However, there is still a little peace and hope when he sees that the
Cormac McCarthy puts his writing ability on full display in The Road. It showcases his one great strength: dark, pessimistic writing. If science fiction and post-apocalyptic settings is your thing, then you’ll love this book. However, if you’re looking for something happy and cheerful with a dash of hope, then sit this one out. There is little hope to be had in The Road, but if you look past the darkness and look for the light, you won’t be disappointed. The characters complement each other perfectly; the man being the voice of reason void of any sense of compassion for anyone other than his son, and the boy’s immense amount of compassion for anyone in need. It is also apparent that the man is only alive because of the boy, accurately hypothesized by the woman the night before she committed suicide saying “you won’t survive for yourself”. She goes on to say that the quintessential loner would be “well advised to cobble together some passable ghost.” This ghost that the woman is talking about is the boy. The loner would then “breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love, giving it every “phantom crumb” and sheltering it from “harm with your body.” This is exactly how the man looks after the boy, never directly answering the frequently asked question of “Are we going to die?” The man appears to break his promise of never sending the boy “into the darkness alone”, but does he really? After all this time on The Road, the man teaches the boy that in an environment like this, there is no such thing as compassion, but after he is found by the other family, maybe compassion could be
At the end of The Road, the boy, who is now a bit older, is greeted by a stranger. This stranger seems friendly enough; he tells the boy that he is one of the good guys, and he does not make the boy feel uncomfortable. He even gives him enough time to say goodbye to his father. The boy asks the stranger, “are you carrying the fire? (McCarthy 283), but the man is not quite sure how to respond to him. When the man sees that talking about the fire calms down the boy a bit, he agrees to it. He also allows the boy to confide in him by telling him that he has a son, daughter, and wife who only wants to help him rather than hurt him. Although the boy is not as much of a Romanticist as his father was, his response to this friendly stranger shows that his father’s determination to keep travelling, even when they felt they could not any longer, has given him the strength and courage he needs to continue on. His father never stopped showing him kindness because he only wanted the best for his
It was the hardest to understand because throughout the journey the two boys find strength and comfort in each other. They could withstand any tragedy and come out stronger, so how was the boy going to carry on without papa. Then it became clear papa had already gave the boy the strength and knowledge he needed to be a survivor. Papa had taught him so much during their journey that the boy would be fine without him. The knowledge he left with the boy would give him everything he would need to survivor including skills, love, and comfort. The journey was not over just because of papa’s death, the boy survived and would continue to carry the fire a stronger person. “And you can’t give up. I won’t let you.”
The novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy outlines the struggles and horrifying events that transpire as main characters, the man and the boy, go on a journey traveling the road, simply trying to survive the post-apocalyptic world they were forced into. The man and the boy encounter terrifying and life-altering events throughout the depressing novel but always veer back onto the road to continue their path and try to continue their lives. As the novel continues the love and care the man has for the boy is evident, which can be seen when the boy is born and the cries of his mother “meant nothing” (59) to the man; his only worry being his boy. McCarthy illustrates the abiding theme of love and care through tactical and precise accounts of
The boy does realize that the world's humanity does depend on his own survival, since he metaphorically carries the fire. He is the new generation that might lead to a new civilization. If he has this role, he does have the weight of everything, on his shoulders. The man's notion of his son as a godlike, a figure that seems to be more than parental love, and the son has the hope to make this world worthwhile again. The memory of death is also like a double-ended sword as well, it's bittersweet especially if it's referring to the ones you love. When they are taken away from you, or wasting away in front of you it's the harshest memory of them all.
The man sadly passes away and the boy is left alone, “he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again” (281). McCarthy leaves the boy in a hopeless situation and the quote further makes it a depressing one. The image created is used to emulate the loss of a loved one with which the reader can sympathize and realize how the moment is one of the worst for the boy to be in. However, the author introduces a stranger and his family where the boy asks, “Are you carrying the fire?” (283). McCarthy has been using the aforementioned quote quite excessively in his novel but it has not been made clear what it really stands for. Now it is crystal clear that the fire represents hope and the will to live on that may spread to others so that they may do the
The structure and language used is essential in depicting the effect that the need for survival has had upon both The Man and The Boy in The Road. The novel begins in media res, meaning in the middle of things. Because the plot isn’t typically panned out, the reader is left feeling similar to the characters: weary, wondering where the end is, and what is going to happen. McCarthy ensures the language is minimalistic throughout, illustrating the bleak nature of the post-apocalyptic setting and showing the detachment that the characters have from any sort of civilisation. Vivid imagery is important in The Road, to construct a portrait in the reader's mind that is filled with hopelessness, convincing us to accept that daily survival is the only practical option. He employs effective use of indirect discourse marker, so we feel as if we are in the man’s thought. The reader is provided with such intense descriptions of the bleak landscape to offer a feeling of truly seeing the need for survival both The Man and The Boy have. The reader feels no sense of closu...
Throughout Cormac McCarthy's, The Road, there are many cases where the boy questions his father's actions. Based on these actions, the boy keeps questioning the man about whether or not they are the good or bad guys. In The Road, the father is willing to murder, consider suicide and ignore helping others, but the boy serves as his father's conscience throughout the novel.