The Road - Character Question
The Road
"Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." (McCarthy 143)
There is nothing out in the world to live for, what drives the man and his son to keep going with the world in a post-apocalyptic state?
In my opinion, what drives the man and his son to keep going is each other.
ReplyDelete"He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke" (McCarthy 4). The son is the only thing that helps the man to have the will to keep going. "That the boy was all that stood between him and death" (McCarthy 25). The man's will to survive is fueled by the love for his son. The man wants to offer whatever he can to his son to make his world a bit more than what it seems, which is dark and deserted.
The man is the sole reason why the boy is still alive. He is driven by his love for the boy. “You say you would die for us but what good is that? I’d take him with me if it weren’t for you” (McCarthy 47-48). When the mom decides that the best thing for them would be to commit suicide, she states that she would have killed her son as well if it weren’t for the man stopping her. This idea can also be seen at the end of the book when the man dies. He states, “I can’t hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I can’t” (McCarthy 235). He loves his son so much that he can’t bring himself to kill him because he brought him into the world and he feels responsible for keeping him there.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that keeps the man going is hope. “You need to keep going. You don’t know what might be down the road. We were always lucky. You’ll be lucky again” (McCarthy 234). Even when he was about to die he wanted to tell the boy to continue to try to stay alive. He believes there is hope for the world and that’s what kept him going for as long as he did. Because he believes in this, he continues to think that his child would be better off alive and getting a chance at this possibility than dead with him.