The Father's Symbolism In The Road

In the novel, The Road, the boy’s character is a sign of hope, which the father tells him throughout the novel, that he is carrying the fire. The way the father views the boy is almost like if he was angel sent from heaven. The boy is everything to the father and would not let him die. This shows that the father only lives for the boy and no one else ever since his wife committed suicide for her selfish ways. The wife thought she knew if she would stay alive eventually they would all get killed or get eaten. The father is the one that takes care of the boy throughout the novel. In the novel the boy shows sense of goodness and innocence, he always wants to help others before he helps himself. The fire the boy carries amounts to strengths

It is a symbol that humans will always live on through any actions. The action that went to the cold world in the novel, The Road, was from a war that had happen. A bomb was used that most of the people in the earth were gone. The bombs that exploded around the world destroyed almost everything around and most people on earth have been burned from the effect of the bombs. The world that they live in has no arrangement between people; there are no rules that order people on how they should live, the only way people survive are to eat people. When the father dies he tells the boy that he is now carrying the fire inside him, which shows the man’s hope for a better future or just a future for the boy to live in. Another symbol of hope is that the father and son continue forward the south, the hope for a better place they could live in. When they reach the south the hope is lost. The author Cormac McCarthy shows this lost hope when they first see the south, by using words like nothingness, bleak, desolate, Cold, and nothing to show how anything they could of hoped to be there wasn’t. The food represents hope, when they are almost out of food that shows horrifying signs, but when they have food it shows hope. “Dear people, thank you for the food and stuff’ (McCarthy 146). The way the father repeatedly says “Oh my God”, when throughout the book he doesn’t show religious

The mother is presenting hope that has been lost while the catastrophe is happening. The mother commits suicide, because she thinks this is the best for their family. The mother just wanted to give up. “As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart” (McCarthy 57). This shows how the mother has lost all hope of a future and nothingness is better than wasting time trying to survive when they know the outcome. The end of The Road is full of hope for the boy and the earth’s future. It uses full of words like white and amber that are almost never seen in the book, with the only colors described are black and grey made it seem like no hope in finding a place. This gives the impression that life is brighter, a better future for the boy and the new earth. It also uses words full of life like muscular and trout, which give the impression of a bright world full of life giving hope to the reader of hope for the future of earth and the boy. The author Cormac McCarthy presents hope in many different ways throughout the book. He shows that the lost hope of people in end of the world situations, the mother and the cannibals. The hope for the future, carrying the fire is in the hand of the boy. The hope for goodness and generosity in the world, the father’s view of the boy and carrying the flame shows how much the boy has grown. The