Father And Son In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

“Beauty and seduction, I believe, is nature's tool for survival, because we will protect what we fall in love with.” - Louie Schwartzberg. In the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, love between a father and son plays a key role in their survival. The father does everything in his power to make sure the son is safe and healthy, even if it means risking his own safety. This idea is greatly exemplified throughout the entire book, when the boy and father enter abandon homes in search of resources. Food and shelter quickly become the most important resources for the father and son, which encourages them to continue searching through abandoned buildings.. Each house represents something different in the story, and plays a key role in how the boy and father survive on their journey on the road.
One of the first houses the pair enters during their journey is the father's childhood home. To the father, seeing his home brings back memories of what his life was like as a boy. This scene makes the father feel upset, as he knows his child will never get to experience a normal childhood like he did. The father reminisces on what life was like before the disaster. “On cold winter nights when the electricity was out in a storm we would sit at the fire here, me and my

sisters, doing our homework.” (McCarthy 26) . While the father is experiencing these warm memories of childhood, he is harshly brought back to reality. “He pushed open the door half expecting to find his childhood things. Raw cold daylight fell through from the roof. Gray as his heart.” (McCarthy 27) The father faces the difficult reality that life is very different than what it used to be. This house representes the nostalgia he feels towards how his life used to be. The father appears to assume that life will never be able to return to the way it used to be, but he never expresses this idea to the child.
Although they had good experiences in most of the houses, one house in particular gave them more trouble than they were expecting.

While searching for food, the pair entered the basement of an old house. “Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt.” (McCarthy 110) The father shoved the boy up the stairs, ensuring his son was safe before protecting himself. At this moment in the plot, both boy and father believed they were going to die. Even though the father was scared himself, he always insured his son’s well being was

priority.
While in search of more resources, they stumbled upon an underground bunker. The bunker was the equivalent to heaven for them, as it was stocked full with everything they had been searching for. “Crate upon crate of canned goods. Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef. Hundreds of gallons of water in 10 gallon plastic terry jugs…” (Pg. 138) In this bunker they found everything required for survival, but the father knew that moving on quickly was necessary. In this situiation, it would of been easy for the father to become selfish and remain in one location for a longer period of time. Once again, he put the safety of his son over the needs of himself. Finding a place like this that had been so well preserved gave the boy and father a sense of hope. Their stay in the bunker as exactly what they needed to reignite their sense of hope, after believing the cold, wet winter would take their lives. After a few days, they left the bunker and continued their journey along the road.
Each discovery provided a different emotion to the father and son, which helps reflect the desperation they were experiencing. The emotions all relate to the experience of love between father and son. Adults protecting their children is something every person can relate to, either as the child or as the parent. The author relates many aspects of the plot to this theme, which makes the characters emotions extremely relatable. Similar experiences can create very different emotions. For example, while the father and son were in the fathers childhood home, the father was experiencing nostalgia while his son was experiencing fear. By using a univeral idea, McCarthy uses the plot to exemplify an ideal that everyone can relate to, no matter what kind of situiation the reader is in.

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.