The fire is also known as the soul. Life has been cut down to a struggle for survival. This book is so blunt in explaining the father and the son’s journey, and shows everyone who is reading it how bad the situation really is. The father debates whether or not he should kill his son and himself, and even teaches the boy to kill himself if he is captured by the bad guys. But, the boy is the man's legacy, he is the reason that he lives and the reason that he struggles for survival. He imparts his legacy to the boy as he is dying because the father hopes that the spark within humanity, if it survives through this time, can light again and restore what it used to be. The father inspires the boy to continue to hope and keep the fire alive, and the boy understands why it is so important. The way the author showed his thinking was unique. The whole book is the journey that the man and son shared, when they both carried the fire together. Over their journey of keeping the “fire” alive, the man already knew how important it was, but the boy was just figuring it out. Now that the father is gone, it’s because of the man that the boy knows how important it is to keep the fire burning and stay alive, he’ll just have to do it on his own.
I viewed the fire in this case as the will to survive. Mainly becasue the fire in your quote convenes an extreme sense of empathy that was directed towards the reader/audience. This empathy is attempting to acknowledge the horribleness of the people's situation, and also forces them to accept the situation and have the will to survive. This will to survive is essential in the father, and is necessary to be passed down from the father to the son; the father's death needs to amplify this fire instead of stinge it, which will hopefully make it reignite as the kid travels away with the no family. "The boy said something but he couldnt understand him. What" he siad. He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one (McCarthy 249).
" This quote shows how the boy has inspiration to live on his own, even though his father is slowly dying. The fact that his father is slowly dying can be paralleled to how the fire in him could be dying out, even though he is trying to keep the fire alive. However, the fire that is inside the son grows stronger as the father slowly dies. In fact, the quote that you used was early enough in the book that the father is suggesting to the son that he will eventually have to "pass the torch" to the sun in a figurative kind of way. The son has to take the fire, and needs to represent in both of them how they have the will to survive.
I viewed the fire as a way of telling the boy that he needs to have the will to survive, hence the "you need to hold the fire", as in, you need to keep going even if I can't keep going. Since the father is dying, he wants to show the boy that he is lucky enough to have the will to live even if the father dies. He is also trying to teach the boy how to be tough if the situation of him dying were coming around. Because what happens when the dad dies is that he has to take care of himself. As a young boy, that is a big responsibility. Therefore teaching him how to be independent is key to survival. Reading this book requires reading in between the lines because the book is very blunt. He wants to help the boy have faith in humanity and faith in survival even when he doesn't. That's how much the father loves the boy. And that is one of the biggest themes within the book. Love and survival is portrayed in the passage. Love, being he doesn’t want the boy to follow him into something dangerous, and survival as in he wants the boy to know how to survive when he’s gone. Since the father gets sick, he knows that the boy will have to live without him. Even though the boy wants to be with his father every minute, how will he know how to be independent? The father is helping the boy.
The fire is also known as the soul. Life has been cut down to a struggle for survival. This book is so blunt in explaining the father and the son’s journey, and shows everyone who is reading it how bad the situation really is. The father debates whether or not he should kill his son and himself, and even teaches the boy to kill himself if he is captured by the bad guys. But, the boy is the man's legacy, he is the reason that he lives and the reason that he struggles for survival. He imparts his legacy to the boy as he is dying because the father hopes that the spark within humanity, if it survives through this time, can light again and restore what it used to be. The father inspires the boy to continue to hope and keep the fire alive, and the boy understands why it is so important. The way the author showed his thinking was unique. The whole book is the journey that the man and son shared, when they both carried the fire together. Over their journey of keeping the “fire” alive, the man already knew how important it was, but the boy was just figuring it out. Now that the father is gone, it’s because of the man that the boy knows how important it is to keep the fire burning and stay alive, he’ll just have to do it on his own.
ReplyDeleteI viewed the fire in this case as the will to survive. Mainly becasue the fire in your quote convenes an extreme sense of empathy that was directed towards the reader/audience. This empathy is attempting to acknowledge the horribleness of the people's situation, and also forces them to accept the situation and have the will to survive. This will to survive is essential in the father, and is necessary to be passed down from the father to the son; the father's death needs to amplify this fire instead of stinge it, which will hopefully make it reignite as the kid travels away with the no family. "The boy said something but he couldnt understand him. What" he siad. He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one (McCarthy 249).
ReplyDelete" This quote shows how the boy has inspiration to live on his own, even though his father is slowly dying. The fact that his father is slowly dying can be paralleled to how the fire in him could be dying out, even though he is trying to keep the fire alive. However, the fire that is inside the son grows stronger as the father slowly dies. In fact, the quote that you used was early enough in the book that the father is suggesting to the son that he will eventually have to "pass the torch" to the sun in a figurative kind of way. The son has to take the fire, and needs to represent in both of them how they have the will to survive.
ReplyDeleteI viewed the fire as a way of telling the boy that he needs to have the will to survive, hence the "you need to hold the fire", as in, you need to keep going even if I can't keep going. Since the father is dying, he wants to show the boy that he is lucky enough to have the will to live even if the father dies. He is also trying to teach the boy how to be tough if the situation of him dying were coming around. Because what happens when the dad dies is that he has to take care of himself. As a young boy, that is a big responsibility. Therefore teaching him how to be independent is key to survival. Reading this book requires reading in between the lines because the book is very blunt. He wants to help the boy have faith in humanity and faith in survival even when he doesn't. That's how much the father loves the boy. And that is one of the biggest themes within the book. Love and survival is portrayed in the passage. Love, being he doesn’t want the boy to follow him into something dangerous, and survival as in he wants the boy to know how to survive when he’s gone. Since the father gets sick, he knows that the boy will have to live without him. Even though the boy wants to be with his father every minute, how will he know how to be independent? The father is helping the boy.
ReplyDelete