Goodness in ‘The Road’
I have the same letter from about six different people. One from Australia, one from
Germany, one from England, but they all said the same thing. They said, "I started
reading your book after dinner and I finished it 3:45 the next morning, and I got up and
went upstairs and I got my kids up and I just sat there in the bed and held them."
The above statement was made by Cormac McCarthy, during an interview with
The Wall Street Journal, when asked "What kind of reactions have you gotten to The
Road from fathers?" Although McCarthy is a man of few words, he makes those words
count. The quote shows the impact his novel has had on several father-son relationships
around the world. I believe it also gives insight into one of the main themes of The
Road: goodness.
It is hard to imagine that a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where
cannibalism runs rampant can have any traces of goodness. However, McCarthy
emphasizes the notion that no matter how dire the situation, goodness can still exist. The
three main ways he portrays this goodness in The Road is through love, spirituality, and
compassion and forgiveness. Love exists between the father and the son and is essentially
what keeps the father fighting, spirituality refers to the multiple religious references
throughout the book, including the main idea that the boy is an angelic figure himself,
and compassion and forgiveness is demonstrated by the boy in almost every instance
possible, which is noteworthy considering that the world plagued by chaos and evil is the
only world he knows.
McCarthy opens the novel with a surprisingly tender line, "When he woke in the
woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping
beside him" (McCarthy, 1). Some writers say the whole story should be present in the
first paragraph; McCarthy takes it a step further. He demonstrates one of the major
themes within the first sentence. To sum it up: it's dark, frigid, and nasty outside, but
these two characters love each other. McCarthy also emphasizes this father-son bond by
getting rid of any maternal characters fairly early on in the novel. He tells us how the
boy's mother could not handle the desolate world anymore and killed herself. The mother
reinforces the bond between the father and the boy when she says, "The one thing I can
tell you is that you wont survive for yourself" (McCarthy, 49). The woman is actually
criticizing the man for loving his son. Isn't it a good thing that the man wants to live in
order to care for the boy? That he would die to be with the boy? Isn't another human
being, especially your child, a very noble reason to live? All these questions have obvious
answers in the father's mind. His memory of a previous, better world makes the one he's
in seem all the more hopeless, resulting in his dependency on love for the boy. As strong
as their love for each other was, however, the father eventually succumbs to death.
McCarthy further demonstrates the love between the father and the son by describing a
touching scene where the boy won't leave his deceased father's side. Throughout the
novel we have seen countless examples of the father expressing his love for the boy, but
now we see the love being reciprocated, and in dramatic fashion. Even the family that
eventually finds the boy recognizes this love instantaneously and leaves a blanket for the
father, upon request by the boy.
The Road is a fundamentally agnostic novel, meaning that some characters seem
to believe in God and others seriously doubt God's existence. For long stretches, the
novel's bleakness and horrific events might make the reader think God doesn't exist or
has at least abandoned the characters in the novel. Then a lyrical, hopeful passage will
crop up and suggest otherwise. Although the novel remains agnostic, it does suggest that
the sacred might be found in other people – that even in the worst of times, goodness is
enshrined in the person you love most. In this case, that “person’ is the boy and the father
believes he is the epitome of goodness. McCarthy validates this idea very early on within
the novel when he writes, “He knew that the child was his warrant. He said: if he is not
the word of God, God never spoke” (McCarthy, 2). This tells the reader that the father
does truly believe in the sanctity of the boy – maybe the only thing holy left in the world.
This provides the father with purpose: if he can protect the boy, he’s doing something
good. It’s his “warrant” – in a sense, the sacred activity that authorizes the father to live.
This spiritual “warrant” is recognized again later in the novel when the father says, “My
job is to take are of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who
touches you” (McCarthy 65). The father’s strong belief in the boy’s sanctity is brought to
fruition when he has a conversation with an old man named Ely. “When I saw that boy I
thought I had died” said Ely. “You thought he was an angel?” replied the father. “I didn’t
know what he was I never thought to see a child again. I didn’t know that would happen”.
“What if I said that he’s a god?” (McCarthy 146). Literally, the father is referring to the
boy as an angelic figure, with enough goodness in him to be considered a god. To even
further develop the boy’s role as an angelic figure, McCarthy uses the theme of light in
several later passages. One specific passage reads, “He took the cup and moved away and
when he moved the light moved with him” (McCarthy 233). At this point in the novel,
the father is finally dying. We could say the father is simply hallucinating however there's
some wisdom in what the father sees. The boy is good and so it makes sense that the light
would follow him. The last example of this theme of spirituality occurs even after the
father dies, on the final page of the novel. “She said that the breath of God was his breath
yet though it pass from man to man through all of time” (McCarthy 241). Now, it is not
only the father that recognizes the goodness that is present within the boy. All this
religious imagery that surrounds the boy leads to the idea that through love, specifically
between the father and the boy, one can find divinity in each other. From the father's
perspective, the boy was the one good thing out there, worthy of his love and protection.
It's even possible that he carries a new fire within himself – not only goodness, but the
memory of his father.
The world McCarthy describes in The Road is a cruel place. Compassion in this
dog-eat-dog, or more literally man-eat-man, world seems all the more precious. Granted,
McCarthy mostly associates compassion and forgiveness with the little boy. This taints
the portrayal of compassion and forgiveness a little, aligning it more with naiveté than
goodness, however it's hard to maintain such a cynical view. Just when you think you've
read the grossest thing possible, a character will do something really, really kind. In this
way, the novel defines compassion and forgiveness as something not required, but given.
The fact that the boy chooses to consistently demonstrate these qualities not only adds to
his angel-like demeanor discussed earlier but also relates to the theme of goodness that is
persistent throughout the novel. The firs instance where we see the compassion of the boy
is when him and his father pass a man that has been struck by lightning. The boy says,
“Cant we help him Papa?” (McCarthy 42). Against all good sense, the boy wants to aid
everyone they meet on the road. The father knows they need to keep moving and
conserve supplies if they want to survive. The boy's compassionate gestures contribute
something just as important to the survival of their little band: he keeps them human.
Further along in the novel, there is another instance of generosity from the boy. This
time, instead of finding a man, the boy swears he sees another little boy. “We should go
get him, Papa. We could get him and take him with us. We could take him and we could
take the dog. The dog could catch something to eat” (McCarthy 73). In this instance, the
boy's compassion strikes us as a little more complicated than purely unselfish generosity.
He pleads and sobs over the little boy, desperate for approval from his father. He even
utilizes the dog to make his case and eventually offers up half of his food in order to see
the little boy. This persistence is remarkable, seeing as how no one else around him is
trying to do the “right” thing. The boy’s demonstration of forgiveness is seen in what I
believe is the climax of the novel. After the whole fiasco where the man tries to steal their
cart and the father demoralizes him by forcing him to strip, the boy actually mutters,
“Just help him, Papa, Just help him. He was just hungry, Papa. He’s going to die”
(McCarthy 218). It really is quite amazing that the boy, even though he's near starvation
and almost had all the food stolen, makes sure he does right by other people. The boy is
understanding about the situation at hand and continues to hold on to whatever “good” is
left in the world. In fact, he seems almost unbelievably saintly at times. The final
exclamation point on the boy’s compassion comes later in an exchange of words between
him and his father. The father says, “You’re not the one who has to worry about
everything.” To which the boy replies, “Yes I am. I am the one” (McCarthy 218). The
boy has a point. He is the one who keeps tabs on how they treat people on the road. Sure,
the father scavenges food and warm clothes and builds fires to keep them warm and in
that sense, the father does have "to worry about everything." But food isn't everything, as
this novel reminds us. Forgiveness, compassion, and just overall goodness count, too.