The Power of Love in the Road, Essay Example

The story of The Road by Cormac McCarthy has made quite the impression on readers all across the country.  It has become well-renowned for its poignant descriptions of a post-apocalyptic world with dangers looming around every corner for a father and son whose entire lives revolved around surviving the travels south.  This fictional environment is by far one of the most compelling descriptions that draw the reader into a destroyed world and keep them glued to the words on each page.  McCarthy covers the subjects of morals and ethics multiple times, especially when describing the immoral bands of thieves known as the “bad guys”, the father’s need to protect the little boy, and the boy’s strong desire to help every person he can regardless of the consequences.

The author uses many different pages of the story to describe the fictional environment as best as he can, which many people have even claimed is almost like poetry.  “Charred and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side.  Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wire strung from the blackened lightpoles whining thinly in the wind.  A burned house in a clearing and beyond that a reach of meadowlands stark and gray…” (McCarthy 7).  The reader can almost visualize the reality that the father and his son are living in, and it becomes very clear early on that people in this new world have no hope or faith and can only use animalistic survival instincts to stay alive.  Many ethical considerations throughout this story are solely based on individualism and survivalist definitions of morals emerge for people looking to improve their decrepit situations.  The boy’s mother commits suicide in the story, and the father recollects her saying that if they would keep on living, they would ultimately end up raped and murdered like everybody else.  She then stuck the pistol in her mouth and pulled the trigger, a memory that plagued the father’s mind for the loss he and his little boy faced.  There is no government, no laws, no police to help protect anyone.  There is no philosophical concept of nation-state or government.  Ethic principles for the father in the story are based primarily upon keeping himself and his son alive during tough times and protecting themselves at all costs.

The father does everything that he can to protect the little boy.  With nothing more than the one pistol with two bullets, he spends the bulk of the story grasping the pistol tight as they push their cart along the dark road to stay ahead of the winter cold as they move south.  The father is sick from the very beginning of the story, always leaving the boy alone in his sleep to go have terrible coughing fits that took the energy out of him.  His values are not only to protect the physical health of the boy, but also to protect the emotional and psychological health of the boy so that his innocence is not victimized by the horrible sights that plague this new world.  Early in the story, the father shows how much he cares for the boy by rationing hot chocolate.  He gives the boy all of the hot chocolate and drinks hot water instead.  The boy catches him and says “I have you watch you all the time … if you break little promises you’ll break big ones.  That’s what you said” (McCarthy 29).  This one specific scene shows the sacrifice that the father is willing to go through so that the boy can survive and live a decent life, at least what could possibly be considered decent in this desolate world of destruction and fire.  Egocentric behaviors and individualism are nonexistent for the father in relation to his fatherly protective bond with his son.

This is a common theme throughout the entire story – the father’s love for the boy and his strong desire to protect him from all dangers.  One of the dangers that the father describes to the little boy is the “bad guys.”  We come to find out through the story that these people are lawless bands of ruthless thieves that have no morals and steal, rape, murder and eat anyone that they find along the road, even little children.  They travel mostly on the major highways, which is why the father keeps them off of these roads as much as possible.  Eventually, a band finds the two characters and steals their cart of supplies that is everything they need to keep living.  It becomes highly apparent that this band does not have any strict moral codes to live under except to strictly survive at all costs.  Morals are described throughout the story as tools that will only lead to the characters’ demise, despite the father and boy showing moral behaviors for fatherly protection.  Utilitarian thought is nonexistent within this new society, and the individualism is rampant whereby characters perform harmful acts to others in order to survive.

Although many people would think that protecting the little boy is always an honorable thing to do, McCarthy describes many cases where the two would come across the paths of many seemingly good people and the father refuses to help them in any way.  The boy acts as a conscience or guiding light to the father in a cloud full of darkness.  Whenever the father would shun someone they met along the road, the boy would beg and plead for him to help.  This is where the story, and the father, shows a conflict between survivalist thinking and individualism compared to values of helping one another during difficult times.  Perhaps a form of utilitarian thought can be pulled from this example, although the greatest good for the greatest number usually only applies to a maximum of three people within the story.  Providing help to strangers and this ethical conflict is seen through two major examples of the little boy walking along the road and the old man Ely. Both of these side characters are completely alone.  The son feels a strong need to help the little boy they come across because he has no one to watch over him.  His mind is haunted by the fact that they did nothing to help this boy and imagines what troubles he could find himself getting into without someone like a father to watch over him.  Even the boy recognizes that this world is impossible to survive in without a little help, support, and love and he lives with an ethical or moral responsibility to help those people they come across.  The boy even discusses this with his father while he is on his death bed by saying, “But who will find him if he’s lost?  Who will find the little boy?”  The father replies, “Goodness will find the little boy.  It always has.  It will again” (McCarthy 238).  It is very rare that people living within such dangerous circumstances find a moral consideration for others, which is an honorable trait for the boy to have.

As the father and son are traveling along the road they encountered the old man Ely and spoke with him at length.  The boy faced an immediate ethical concern when he found out that the man had no food.  It is hard to put the ethical principle into words, but it could be like the Golden Rule, ‘do unto others and you would have done unto you’. The little boy decides to give the old man some food.  The two characters have very little to offer anyone, but the boy understands that without food the old man will die and considers his well-being over theirs.  The father looks at his boy in an entirely new light telling the old man that whatever is inside the boy will not die.  This ethical conflict of survivalist or individualism thinking as compared to helping others is fully illustrated within this portion of the story.  Despite being helped by the boy, the old man does not even thank him for the action or even recognize that an honorable decision has been made by someone so young.  The plot is not directly changed by this, except to say that the two have even less food after the boy gives it to Ely, but the father knows that the boy will be able to survive and has a wonderful heart.  McCarthy never states that this eases the father’s mind, but it is likely that as the father was lying down injured and dying, he did not fear for the well-being of his son.  He knew that the little boy was capable of taking care of himself, which is the first time this occurs in the entire story.

This poignant story unfolds upon the reader like a gift that describes the joys and sorrows of the love between a father and son. The real possibilities of this world are unknown, but this does not matter.  McCarthy succeeds in describing moral conflicts in a world where survival is everything, and everyone else could be a danger to the individual’s ability to survive.  Still, the youth of the son provides a sense of purity and a natural love for other people, which is why he is referred to as the bearer of fire.  During difficult times, The Road focuses our attention on the ethical conflicts that can arise between helping others and helping ourselves.

References

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