At the end of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the boy’s father dies and almost immediately thereafter he is found by a new group of well-equipped survivors who even have children and a dog. On the surface, this appears to be a very superficial way to end the novel. The boy and the man live in a dismally bleak world, encountering such horrors as cannibals and rapists at every turn in their journey to the coast. There is very little gratification in the story, if any. Any good fortune they stumble across they are forced to leave behind. It doesn’t seem right to have such a perfect ending. However, McCarthy had a son as an old man, and it seems quite obvious that The Road features them both. When this is taken into account, it becomes clear that McCarthy does not wish to see the character that is supposed to be his son left alone in a world ravaged by violence. …show more content…
He believes that good things are unattainable, which is why he is so desperate to have nightmares instead of good dreams. The old man trusts no one and isn’t willing to take the chance to speak to any others they encounter. This is evidence of McCarthy’s own cynicism. The world is dismal and the people in it are malevolent. The hopeful ending to the book counters this. McCarthy does not wish for this to be the truth. He is aware that he will likely not live to see his son to adulthood, but he wants for there to be someone to protect him when he can