Hope And Redemption In The Road Cormac Mccarthy

In the novel The Road Cormac McCarthy depicts the struggle for survival of a father with his son in the gray and broken world after the doom of almost all creatures. However in this post-apocalyptic world, the worst part of the calamity is not only the damage it brings but the situation it puts human beings in: lacking any kinds of edible food and many survivors becoming cannibals. However, hope plays a significant role on their road seeking survival. The father and the son educate, influence, remind and encourage each other all the time in order to keep faith in life and themselves. The author repeatedly points out that they are carrying the “fire” in heart. What is that fire? To some extents, the “fire” symbolizes the hope they have. How does the hope lead the redemption?
Hope brings redemption in

three aspects.

It’s the hope, which leads the father and the son to the redemption of life, heart and civilization of human being.
Hope rescues their lives. Differently from the people who give up their lives, such as the man’s wife, who is completely despairing and walks out of the house to death of her own accord, the father and the son choose to seek for survival, because they have hope inside. Actually at first, there is a time that the father has an idea to end their lives, and he teaches the son how to put the gun into his mouth. “If we were going to die would you tell me? I don’t know. We’re not going to die.” (p94) The boy is the father’s fire in heart, his hope. We can see the inner struggles of the father by the contrasts of the dreams and the reality. The first paragraph of the book shows the depression and fear of the father. However, there is still a little peace and hope when he sees that the

boy is asleep. The father protects his son and desperately wants his son to survive. The boy motivates the father to survive, too. The father tries his best to look for food, shoes and shelters, to walk to the south to the sea, to fight with cannibals, to overcome all the obstacles they face and to encourage his son. All these efforts and contributions he makes are due to one reason: he has faith and hope for life. The hope saves their lives. For instance, once, they are very lucky to escape from the dangerous house of cannibal. And when the old man tells them the tragic story about his son, the father and the son still believe they can survive. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we Papa? Yes. We are. And nothing bad is going to happen to us. That’s right. Because we’re carrying the fire. Yes. Because we’re carrying the fire.”(p83) In this conversation, McCarthy emphasizes the significance of the “fire” and the hope they have for life.
Hope brings innermost salvation. There are several contrasts. Many people give up their beautiful virtue, the nature of human beings under the pressure of hunger and death, so they steal, kill, and even eat survivors. For example, the cannibals are totally against human morality and act like monsters. On the contrary, the father is still trying to obey the moral standard of the former society, teaches his son that the world is still good and tells him “They are the good guys.” However, there are also some conflicts of thoughts between the father and the son. The boy keeps asking his father the question, “Are we still good people?” There is a striking contrast that the father kills people for protection purposes but the boy always wants to help others. One important point is that the boy is born after the doom, so he still has an intrinsic insight about morality. He observes, experiences and doubts. He is like the virtue alarm of his father, the hope of