Cormac Mccarthy Fire In The Road

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Imagine a devastating event that does not just change the world but alters all aspects of life to the point of being unrecognizable. How does one keep hope alive in a world where everything is either dying or has turned evil? In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, this is the daily struggle that confronts the man and boy. This remarkable story is about a father and son's attempts to survive in a barren landscape, faced with the constant threat of starvation, murder, exposure, and illness; they must continually decipher between good and evil, preserve the goodness of civilization, and find a purpose to continue their journey, especially when the existence of God is questionable. McCarthy's thematic purpose is to show that the qualities that mankind …show more content…

The father often uses the phrase “carrying the fire,” to suggest the knowledge the son must inherit from his father in order to one day continue the father's legacy. The father tries to educate his son in goodness, survival, and decency even though all such humanity has been extinguished. His efforts to preserve civilized manners reflect his nurturing and give purpose to his existence. Before the father dies he tells his son that all this fire—warmth, instinct for good, and knowledge—lives inside him: “You have to carry the fire. I don't know how to. Yes, you do. Is the fire real? The fire? Yes, it is. Where is it? I don't know where it is. Yes, you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it” (McCarthy 278-279). The fire has multiple symbolic meanings for the man and the boy. For the man the fire represents the love he has for his son because his son is his reason for continuing. It is also the man’s moral code, his way to refrain from turning evil and committing murder or cannibalism. For the boy the fire symbolizes the kindness he carries even when he has been exposed to evil. Since the boy was born after the catastrophic event, he embodies a sense of purity, an untainted fire within him. Consequently, the son is more naïve and trusting of others than his father. McCarthy's “carrying the fire” functions as a metaphor of knowledge and hope for humanity, the natural instinct to keep going and hope for something better along the

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