“The Road” is McCarthy’s best-known. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2006 and has since been made into a well-known award-winning film. This novel follows a man and a boy who remain unnamed throughout the novel. The two travel south through what used to be the United States to reach the coast. Together, they attempt to remain “good” and “carry the fire” while surviving in a harsh and deadly world. Throughout the novel, they encounter “road agents,” or groups of men who kill and eat human beings, as well as other travelers as desperate as they are.
In the story’s introduction, the two main characters, the man and the boy, are traveling in the woods. The boy is asleep, and the man is thinking about a recent dream of a creature with dead eyes. His dreams feature later in the novel as well. The man believes that good dreams are to be feared and bad dreams are reassuring, showing that the dreamer is still fighting.
The boy is the man’s primary concern, and this shapes the story’s central conflict, as all the man does is so he can protect the child. He carries a pistol with two bullets that may, the reader assumes, be used for defense or, if their situation is incredibly desperate, for suicide. The two travel the road, as they do throughout most of the novel. They’re attempting to make it to the south coast, hoping to find a better life. But, there is little real hope.
As they travel, they come upon absconded towns, houses, and cities. They’re nothing more than remnants of what they once were. The man often remembers the past, including his wife, whom readers never meet. But, the story alludes to the possibility that she killed herself to escape their dire situation.
In stripping the world of this novel of its population, McCarthy zooms in on the human details that are essential to the story. The duo traveling through empty streets, avenues, and roads is seen in sharp focus. Even faceless and nameless, they are alive and contrast sharply against the dead environment. Like a spot of blood on the snowy ground, every cough, laugh, or sob draws out a sharp emotional response from the reader.
The two find a single can of Coke in a vending machine. The man gives it to the boy to show him what the world used to be. This is one more example of how unselfish the man is throughout the novel.
The boy and man come to the house the man grew up in, and the boy is scared to go inside. This is because he’s become used to the dangers that other human beings pose. There could be anyone or anything inside the house—road agents, for example, or cannibals.
The two swim in a waterfall together, and the reader is treated to a moment that almost feels normal. The man teaches the boy how to float on his back in the water. This is one of a few more tender scenes in the novel.
A key refrain throughout the novel is “carrying the fire.” The boy is very concerned about this. If they are “carrying the fire,” it means they’re still on the side of good, not on the side of those who eat people and harm others in any way. The man does what he can to encourage the boy to remain hopeful about the future; this includes telling him stories of the past.
The idea of carrying the fire is attractive and curious. I admire how much people will hold on to moral ideas and try to do good things, even when those ideas can be a hindrance. Is our sense of human dignity as integral to our lives as barbaric acts of survival? When both considerations clash, will we risk our lives for a chance to keep our dignity intact?
The man also has flashbacks of times earlier on in their journey. These are mainly confined to when his wife left him and the boy. He remembers when the boy was born and how he delivered the child.
The story’s rising action occurs when a road agent, separated from his group, finds the man and the boy as they attempt to hide in the woods. The road agent grabs the boy, but the man shoots the would-be-kidnapper in the head using one of his two bullets. The boy is worried that since his father killed someone, they’re no longer the good guys, but the man assures him that they are.
The man and boy find a large home at a key point in the novel. They’re suspicious of it and the piles of supplies attached to a string. The man breaks into the floor of the pantry that was once locked. The boy is immediately terrified, but the man goes in. He finds a group of naked men and women who are being kept alive so that they can be eaten later. They run, only just escaping before the road agents return.
Later, the man finds an old apple orchard and some dried-out fruit. They eat and drink and have a happier moment together. But it doesn’t last for long. The boy asks his father about the people in the basement. He knows that they’re going to be eaten but also knows that there is nothing that he and his father can do to save them. They’re still the good guys, he knows.
I discovered that humans can survive up to five days without water and three weeks without food. Without either, a person may die in about four days. This makes me appreciate the ever-present sense of threat to their lives that must plague the man and his son as they walk across a barren landscape. This also does not consider the other survivors in direct competition for scarce resources with them.
The two are nearing death, though, and the man becomes increasingly absorbed in his thoughts and memories. As the man seems to accept their deaths, he finds a bunker filled with good cots and water to sleep on. There is also a chemical toilet. The two spend a few days in the bunker, eating and sleeping. This is the turning point in the novel, and it lightens a progressively bleak story.
The man loads up supplies from the bunker and gives himself and the boy haircuts. They briefly encounter another traveler, Ely, to whom they give supplies and with whom they spend several hours. The boy becomes upset, knowing that Ely is going to die. The man continues to weaken throughout the following pages, and it becomes clear that he isn’t going to survive.
They encounter a group of three men and a pregnant woman. They hide and later discover a baby’s body skewered over a fire–the pregnant woman’s child.
Eventually, the two arrive at the coast, but it’s anti-climactic. It’s dark, grey, and much like the rest of the world. They camp on the beach and walk down the shore. When they return, all their belongings have been stolen. They catch the thief, and the man makes him take off all his clothes, leaving him dead. But the boy guilts him into giving him his clothes back, knowing that if he doesn’t, the thief will die.
We live through the lives of characters in the literature we read. We identify with their problems, share their sorrows, or imagine how we would live differently in their shoes. The man in this story is different. I can’t imagine how to live in his world, and his choices show a rare courage. He is heroic; all his qualities are larger than life. I can’t help but admire him.
The story’s climax happens when the two enter a town where the man is almost killed. He gets shot in the leg with an arrow, and the man retaliates by firing a flare through a window. He tells the boy that the shooter lived, but it’s unclear whether or not that’s true. The man’s wound is bad, and he is left with a limp.
Through the story’s falling action, the man becomes weaker and weaker, unable to pretend he is all right in front of the boy. One night, the man is in such bad shape that he cannot get up. He tells the boy to travel south and to keep “carrying the fire.” He dies that night.
In the book’s resolution, the boy sits beside his father’s body and is met by a group of “good guys,” including a man, a woman, a little boy, and a girl. The boy trusts them, and they invite him to join their family. The novel ends with the memory of a mountain stream.
Where is the dog? In all this, the is no group that this been able to provide a common ‘carrying fire” which seems impossible.
Possibly a reflection of his life choices of ‘using’ as has been revealed.
IF he actually wanted the best life for his child, and the wife that he disappointed, wouldn’t he have chosen PERMANENCE instead of wandering?
Hey there! McCarthy does briefly reference a dog near the end, when the boy is taken in by another family — it symbolizes a faint return of trust, warmth, and community. As for permanence versus wandering, the novel seems to suggest that the father’s choices were shaped more by necessity than preference. The wasteland offers no real stability, so “carrying the fire” becomes their way of holding onto permanence in values, rather than in place.