Father And Son In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road (2006) follows the journey of a father and a son as they walk through post-apocalyptic America. This new world is filled with nothing by solemn skies, death, and ash. On the road the pair stays away from the bad guys while hunting for rare food sources. The young boy is hopeful in this new world and helps the father believe that the worst is over. The father is only concerned about the nourishment and safety of his son and puts all his effort into preparing the boy to eventually live on his own. The destruction of all living things from the apocalypse has left food, safety, and each other the only things still sacred in this new world. The last sources of food are sacred because no plants grow anymore. The father and son eat the few cans of food that they can find. They spend many of their days searching for food. Searching for food is dangerous and they run into other people on the road searching for food: “We’ll have to take a risk. We need to find something to eat (McCarthy 79). The two keep food sacred since it is now a very rare item this far into the new world. Many times do they run out of food: “That night they camped in a ravine and built a fire against a small stone bluff and ate their last tin of food” (76). The father and the boy come …show more content…
The father keeps the boy and himself safe at all times. The father will go as far as not having a fire at night in order for them not to be seen by travelers on the road: “He could find no safe place to make a fire” (176). The people along the road are very dangerous and try to kill the father and boy multiple times. One day the boy had been kidnapped and the father shot the man within seconds of the boy being taken away: “The man had already dropped to the ground and he swung with him and leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet”