Travis Eckert

8/20/07 ; 4th Period

Sevits

The Road follows the story of a boy and his father. The boy always seems to be dependent on his father, but sticks up for himself when he thinks his father is wrong and thinks for himself. Which is quite impressive for his age, but for the condition of things, it’s quite obvious why. Like “when he got back the boy was still asleep,” (McCarthy 5). This clearly shows he is in most ways dependent, but as I explained earlier, he can think for himself. His father always showed compassion for his kid, it was always his “sunshine”, and probably his only hope in life. After all, it’s basically a few people like them, just scavengers for food and cannibals.

That basically explains my symbol, the son is the father’s sunshine on the destroyed world. It also explains when “They spent the afternoon sitting wrapped in the blankets eating apples,” (McCarthy 124). This shows once again the dependency by his dad, but this time shows more of their bond. They got lucky finding it, and the son gladly gives some to his dad, though they are both hungry afterwards still.

There are many struggles for the son, and many questions he cannot ever quite comprehend. This is shown the most when “We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we? No, of course not. Even if we were starving? We’re starving now. You said we weren’t. I didn’t say we weren’t starving. But we wouldn’t. No. No matter what. Because we’re the good guys. Yes,” (McCarthy 128). Again, the boy only asks questions, and more questions. Though he has the right to wonder. But his father isn’t exactly what most people would classify as mentally stable, he always asks him in case the cannibals come to shoot himself if he sees them and puts the gun in his son’s mouth and tells him to do it. He of course never complies, but he just doesn’t take orders, he thinks things through. Though sometimes in where they are, there are no times to ask questions, it’s either react or die.

This boy can be persistent, after all, I think I would have given up or been found already by the cannibals if I were in their situation. But this boy does the same thing to his father throughout the entire story, and in sometimes it’s negatively in light of the father. This is greatly shown in “How long can we stay here Papa? Not long. How long is that? I don’t know. Maybe one more day. Two. Because it’s dangerous. Yes. Do you think they’ll find us? No. They won’t find us. They might find us. No they won’t. They won’t find us,” (McCarthy 148).

The boy has many struggles throughout this book, and so does his father. The boy kind of has it easy, but with the struggle of him being by himself at the end of the book when his father dies it a major blow. Though he does get assistance from a nice man. This boy probably becomes a very well rounded person in all aspects, though there is not much to live for, after all the world was just mostly destroyed besides the small traces of life like himself. The boy starts to get more intelligent, at least that is what I would use to describe him asking less questions, though anyone would wonder about anything and everything with what they went through, especially the boy since he went through this at such a young age.