The Road Father Son Relationship Essay

In the book The Road, the son and father have a very complex and strained relationship due to the world that they live in. The reasons of this complex and strained relationship could be linked to the facts that the son is fairly doubtful of his father at times, the father places his son at a very high ranking; believing he is the only remaining sign of Gods existence, and that since they are the only two on this journey that lead from a tragic incident, the way they interact and speak to one another and the actions that they may take perhaps are not what they want to do.

The father has a very strange and warped view of his child, perceiving him as the only remaining sign of Gods existence, that the son is the only thing that gives him hope …show more content…
Although they do trust each other, the son frequently doubts the fathers decisions, and boy does not seem to completely trust what his father says. To contrast to this, the father grows to trust his sons judgement and it plays a big role in what the father chooses to do as the story progresses. The son doesn’t like a lot of the fathers decisions to go explore places like abandoned houses, and doubts if the risk his father is taking could be worth it. He would rather move on and find somewhere safer but the father, although knowing his sons doubt forces him to do what he decides. In a similar sense, the boy doesn’t completely trust what his father may say. Though his father says they won’t die and they will make it to the end of their journey, the boy frequently thinks the opposite, that they will die on the journey and they would be better off dead anyways. He does trust his father, but at times he questions his trust. The opposite of this is the father 's trust in the boy 's decisions. At first the father doesn’t listen to the boy as much in the beginning of the book, but near the death of the father he listens more to what the boy thinks would be the best idea, because he is preparing him for a time when he will not be around, helping him believe that he should trust his decisions, that he can live on without his …show more content…
The son is the only thing to the father that stands between him and death, and in return the father is the reason the son made it as far as he did. Without one another though, they could have possibly taken their own lives or could have been captured by cannibals on the road. Since the son is the only thing in the father 's eyes worth struggling through the world for, the son could feel guilty for making his father go through everything that he has. To contrast for this, the father is the only reason the son could have made it as far as he has. Without the father 's judgement and decisions, he could have been captured or starved to death a long time ago. But since they are the only ones that each other have, the only people they have seen on the journey, other than the brief encounters such as Ely, if they didn’t have each other they would have been alone. Although the son could have found other people to try and survive with, because of the tragic incident of the mother taking her own life, the father could have followed her footsteps because he was alone.

There are many more reasons to take into account why the relationship between the son and father is the way it is, the main points that I believe are important are as stated above, the son’s doubtfulness of his father; the trust between each other, the way the father sees his child;