Following the journey of a father and son in The Road, Cormac McCarthy explores life on an Earth with no future. In a post apocalyptic world where the concept of living has been replaced by the idea of surviving, one father struggles daily only to provide his son another day to breathe. The father takes every moment as it’s own, ignoring the fact that no matter how long they can push through the hardship it will ultimately never end. The will to continue going comes from more than just the future ahead. Instead of just living to see another day, seeing his son next to him everytime he opens his eyes gives him reason to go on. The relationship that the father and son have gives value to living such a life. The boy without his father would most …show more content…
One of the greatest things that someone can do with the time they have is to share it. The boy in The Road may not have much in his short past nor anything in store for his future, but for what he does have he's had his father with him the whole time, making it one of the last things he can find sentimental value in. The same applies the other way, the father has nothing left from the previous world except his son. For that reason alone the father finds new ways to stay alive everyday, for “he knew only that the child was his warrant”(3). The father does not survive day to day in fear of dying, but rather he embraces that if he couldn’t be with his son he “would want to die” (5). His son brings value to their hopeless life as they travel down the seemingly endless road together. The only thing left when someone has nothing they still have the people around them. Although the father and son may not have anything left, nor anything ahead of them, they still have a reason to live, each other. The father does not want to see his son die, but he will not leave the earth himself because “when you die it’s the same as if everyone else did too” (87). The will to live, knowing that there is no future ahead, comes purely from seeing his son on a daily basis, he cannot give that up for that's all he has left. He doesn’t think much of it, instead he “just [keeps] going”