The novel The Road depicts the journey of a father and his son as they try to survive in a post-apocalyptic America. The two characters struggle not only with their physical needs, such as hunger and bodily damage, but also their emotional trials as they witness the horrors of desperate means of surviving.I think the main goal of the father in this story is to prepare his son to live a life after the father has passed away. He continually emphasizes that they are the "good people" and that they "carry the fire". For example, when the pair comes across a group of emaciated individuals trapped in a cellar waiting to be eaten alive, the boy is shown the true repulsion of what human beings are capable of doing in order to survive. I think the film put a bigger emphasis on this scene, more so than the novel, because the way this group of people resorted to cannibalism is so horrifying and shocking. Yes, they were trying to survive, but what the father is trying to show his son is that there are other ways to survive, and killing is not one of them. The boy asks his father if they would ever eat anyone, even if they were starving, and his father responds with, "we're starving now". He is telling his son that they are in the same situation as the other people, but they are choosing to be "good".
I think the boy's essential goodness is so clear throughout both the novel and the film, especially in his scenes involving the man who stole the cart and Ely. The boy is so unwilling to see them get hurt, and he even wants to give the men food so that they will not die.
The ending of the novel and the film were very similar in my opinion. The only difference that the film contained for me was seeing the family who was going to take the boy in, including the two children, one of which was a boy seen earlier in the novel/film. I think when the boy was deciding whether or not to join the family at the end, and he asks the man if he is "carrying the fire," this is showing that the boy will continue down the path that his father hoped he would. What I took away from this story was that the boy did find other "good" people left in the world, and I think that is significant because it provides a sense of hope.
2 comments:
The novel is much less optimistic about the boy's chances for survival with the family than the film,don't you think. The film makes the family seem "good" while the novel is much less clear about the family's intentions.
I agree about the film and book's message regarding the few good people left in the world. Unfortunately, the good seemed to be outnumbered by the bad. I would never judge anyone for looting after a natural disaster but the behavior that was exerted by the flesh eaters was extremely malicious.
Even without education, it is common sense that teamwork and strategic planning would have served them better. Notwithstanding, a chance to make right what was wrong before the apocalypse. In the novel, the father referred to the boy as "God" because he was very pure of heart. Naturally, it would make sense to start fresh with people who are compassionate and are free from corruption.
The most interesting contradiction in the film and movie was the father's claim of them being good guys, yet, he did not care to help out others. The boy would become anguished and angry with his father's objections whenever the boy wanted to help someone. The boy displayed his disapproval by not talking.
It seemed that his father struggled to explain how to decipher between good and bad. The father knew that he could not teach him how to tell but I think that he sensed that the boy would eventually learn from experience.
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