Comparing Ely's The Road

The Road is a story not only about survival, but about love and compassion for all life in times of great hardship. However, it holds a much deeper meaning within its text, from the sentence and dialog structure to the vocabulary used and the names given to certain characters. One deeper truth about The Road regards the man’s view of the boy and the meaning of their relationship. The man views the boy as God, as the boy is the only thing he believes in anymore, and therefore would sacrifice himself to the boy as a disciple would sacrifice themselves to God. While the man and the boy’s relationship is based on the love of father and son, there is undeniably a religious element to their lives and their journey which can be found within the text

He is the only character in this book with a name and it is a name he has given himself as he refuses to give his real name because he “doesn’t want people talking about” him (page 171). The name Eli is a biblical and Hebrew name meaning “high” or “my God” and in biblical tales Eli was a priest who cared for the prophet Samuel when he was a child. Eli had two sons who were sinful and lacked parental guidance from Eli. Thus, a curse was placed on his family that his sons would not reach old age and would die on the same day and all of Eli’s descendants would not reach old age and would be subservient to the prophet. The fact that Ely choose this name could mean that he once had children that he lost as a result of the apocalypse. He may have also choose this name because he views himself as a bad parent because he outlived his children and could not protect them from death. This further puts him opposite the man because the man is doing what Ely could not, protecting his son and making sure he survives. It is also ironic that Ely would say he does not believe in God even though his name means “my God”. Ely and his descendants were subservient to the prophet so perhaps at one time Ely was a follower and server of God, perhaps even a minister or priest. It is again ironic that he has chosen this name because he does not obey any god and he does not view the boy as a god as the father does; he does

The writing is much like the world that surrounds the two main characters. It lacks proper structure and is stripped of what is normally considered necessary to a novel. And yet somehow it stills makes sense and allows for readers to understand what is going on. The conversation between the man and Ely is one of the longest conversations between a main character and a minor character in this book, the other being the conversation the wife has with the man before she leaves to commit suicide. While it does not explicitly state who is speaking, it is still easy to tell who is speaking as the man and Ely have different beliefs and viewpoints regarding belief and the state of the world. They talk not only about theology, but what their general beliefs are and again their conversation is merely a bare structure of what could have been written as vast dialog about belief with descriptions of characters movements and changes in body language. But instead, McCarthy chose to write the passage this way. The fact that there is little to no structure in the writing and the world can be traced back to religion and the new world lack of it. Religion often provides people with morals and structure, but in this new world it appears that there is no more religion as evidence by Ely’s lack of belief in God and the fact that those who have survived commit horrible acts of violence