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Carrying The Fire In Joseph Mccarthy's The Road

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Throughout the novel, the man struggles to motivate himself and his son. He sometimes invokes the notion of carrying the fire in order to reassure the child. “Nothing bad is going to happen to us. That’s right. Because we’re carrying the fire. Yes. Because we’re carrying the fire” (83). What does it mean to carry the fire? Throughout the story, the duo are literally carrying fire, or at least producing it. Fire sustains them; it allows for them to cook their food, keep warm, and to play cards or for the father to read to his son at night. Fire is the foundation of civilization but in The Road, it is also the primary implement of the destruction of civilization. Maybe the significance of fire is carrying the seeds of civilization. If humanity were to return to the world, it would be through the “good guys” like the man and his son. Throughout the novel there are times where the father and son lose their faith in carrying the fire because it is not easy. An example of carrying the fire outside of The Road is in the mythological story of Prometheus. In this story from Mythology by …show more content…

Despite all the horrors that they face, the small family shares a deep connection. This allows for meaning and value in their lives amid all the suffering and pain. The existence of this relationship makes the struggle worthwhile. Many of the days the man and boy spend together they are working toward a common goal, the man teaching the boy about many things and the kid teaching his father to not leave the other good guys behind. For example, he coerces his father into giving food to an old, nearly blind man. Though the father does it begrudgingly, it makes their relationship

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“A truck drew close and unloaded its hold small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this with my own eyes children thrown into the flames” (pg 42 Chap. 3) They put them into the fire as if they were just logs that needed to be burned. They had no mercy.

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Both text producers use fire as a symbol of safety throughout their texts, in Survivor the fire represents survival because “once it’s gone” so is the competitor (Dickinson, Ep.1). Similarly, Golding’s characterisation of Ralph allows him correctly understands the importance of fire and what it meant: rescue. Ralph immediately urges that the boys “must make a fire” to enhance the chances of rescue. (Golding, 51). Dickinson utilises the actions of his competitors to portray how a key aspect of society, a hierarchy, is maintained in Australian Survivor.

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The boy takes care of him as they talk one last time. Most prominently, the symbol of “the fire” (McCarthy 278) and carrying it are used to display hope and virtue. The man often uses ‘carrying the fire’ as a way to

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In the book Lord Of the Flies by William Golding good is the idea of a civilized society using law and order, while bad or chaos is savagery or primitive ideas. primitive by the fact that their is no repercussions for your actions. Fire doesn't change depending on who’s using it, the person with the tool of fire chooses how to use it. In the story the idea of law and order in a civilization changes to primitive actions without repercussions.

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The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a novel that follows the journey of a father and son traveling south to escape the post-apocalyptic scene they were unfortunately put in. The father and son are survivors of some unnamed disaster that has occurred. As time passes by there is less and less food. There is also a lack of plants and animals. Other than scavenging for food, the only means of survival for some is cannibalism.

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Throughout the beginning of the novel, Ralph is the leader of the fight to keep and maintain the fire, but he is starting to give up hope and lets the fire die. Lastly, fire symbolizes hope during the end of the novel. Jack and most of the other boys have turned on Ralph and want to “hunt” him. They decided that the best way to get Ralph to come to them on the beach was to light the whole forest on fire so Ralph would be forced out to the beach. Ralph was trying to run out of the forest as “the roar of the forest rose to thunder and a tall bush directly in his path burst into a great fan-shaped fan.

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‘Yes it is,’” (McCarthy 278). The boy sees the father as a visionary. An all-knowing person. When his father says the fire is real and the boy can reach it, the boy believes him and will now strive to achieve it for his father.

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Naturally, fire is thought of in conjunction with destruction, but in a survival sense it signifies hope and warmth. Carrying the fire basically means that even though all the odds are against the father and son they are still pushing forward. It is something to live for when truly there isn’t. At the end of the story, when the father dies, the boy has to continue on the legacy without him. When he stumbles upon a man who asks if he wants to join their family the boy immediately asks if he’s carrying the fire.

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Ralph says, “The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make” (80). As an effort to show the boys their dire circumstances, he tries to convict them, including himself, of their ignorance. On the contrary, Jack Merridew counters Ralph’s authority with the proposition of thrill and amusement.

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Another symbol is the road, which is a desolate, transient thing full of danger, the man refers to them as "blood cults". The director really emphasises the importance of the fire by the way it contrasts against the gloomy dark post apocalyptic

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Without the boy, the man no longer has a reason to live. By saving the boy, the man saves himself and furthers both his and the boy’s

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The fire was also a symbol of civilization, that the boys would survive and get rescued. Fire is quite profound in what it reveals about humans. The fire was the object that the hunters didn’t have, it was desirable because it was limited. The fire brought out the innate greed that humans possess. The hunters weren’t content with asking for fire from Ralph, they were too prideful and savage to be civil in any manner, so they stole it.

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Fire was used to represent Wright’s development educationally when Richard begs for Granny's house guest, Ella, to read to him. Richard says “my imagination blazed” (Wright 39). In this context the word has much meaning about Richard’s yearning passion for reading. This shows that Richard has a desire for learning and reading and once, and even after Richards Granny had told him he could not read in the house again, he vows to read as many books as he could when he got older.

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At the end of the story, the kids learned that their family had been hurt for a long time and that they were grieving the death of their son who died years ago. The kids discovered that their grandparents cared about their dad and them even though they didn’t show

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he shouts to his sons; “the woods are burning!” when he gropes for metaphoric expression, he uses stale expressions: “because you got a greatness in you, Biff, remember that… .Like young God. Hercules-something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him.”

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