Symbolism In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

Have you ever been in a post-apocalyptic world from a meteor that hit Earth? Probably not, but in the novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy you see a post-apocalyptic world because of a meteor strike that a boy and man are living in. Within the novel, though, many themes arise from the very title of the book, to the very end that hold a ton of meaning and sentiment. The theme I would say is the most prominent and important is you should always “hold the fire” even if you have to move on and leave things behind. You see this theme with the symbolism, the tone and foreshadowing. The symbolism within the book is all super important. I think one thing that really symbolizes the theme I stated above, is within page 164. Within this page you see a random Old Man struggling and walking the same way the Boy and the Man are walking. The Boy says “We have to give him something to eat” (164) on multiple occasions, begging to help the Older Man and to give him a can of fruit. I feel like this really symbolizes the Boy “holding the fire” and being good, no matter what he loses in the situation or how bad life is at this moment.
Another example of symbolism in the book is when the Man states that “Good dreams

On page 35 the Woman and Man are talking about their future within the post- apocalyptic world. The Woman states “They are going to rape us, and eat us and you won’t face it. You'd rather wait for it to happen. But I can't. I can't.” The tone of this statement is just a dark and helpless feeling. You can tell the Woman is done, and you know that from her later taking her clothes off and just leaving in the freezing cold and never coming back. I think the tone of this and her leaving changes the Man's tone and shows him it’s time to “light a fire” and live on and “hold the fire” even when things get hard and you have to leave things behind, and in this case, for the Man, his