Fire is the symbol of ending but also of a new beginning, eventhough, there doesn't seem to be indications that a new life will begin, just that all life on Earth is ending. Apr 12, PM. Fire in the book symbolizes three things, home, hope and destruction. As the book progresses the dead landscape we read in front of our eyes becomes more evident and depressing but at the moment the father makes the fire, the tone of the story changes and this becomes evident in how both the father and son start talking to each other, which is something we don't see much in the story thus far.
They feel at that instant in a place they can call home, a place away from the gray valley that sorrounds them. Secondly, hope is a theme that is constantly present in the book since they have the hope of finding something better down south and that's the main objective of the book.
Furthermore, the fire helps them re-kindle that hope they lose when they're unable to find supplies or shelter. Finally, fire symbolizes an enemy that they cannot escape because the land is dead dry causing many fires that will eventually grab them by surprise. Luis Alejandro Ospina. Apr 25, PM. I definitely feel the same with what you say about what fire means. In a way, it can be looked upon as a symbol and force of destruction because it leaves everything in ashes.
The world the man and boy live in is essentially surrounded entirely by the ashes of burnt things; burnt trees, houses and even bodies. Nonetheless, I do feel that the fire is something good. After the world pretty much crumbled, fire has kept the man and boy warm every night and it has given them hope. I believe that the fire also symbolizes the hope of a better world and also the goodness left in humanity.
This is why the boy always wants to make sure that they are still carrying the fire, because if they are, it means they are still the good guys. Society has collapsed and people have turned to horrible and bad things in order to survive. The boy wants to make sure that they are not doing anything wrong, that they will remain good and that they will continue carrying the fire.
This can clearly be seen when the father tells the boy just before he dies that the fire is within him. He means that hope and goodness leaves within the boy and that he must keep carrying it. You dont. You'll have to take a shot. Are you carrying the fire? Am I what? Carrying the fire. He determines that the man is trustworthy and good because he is also carrying the fire.
Furthermore, it is also evident that throughout the book the man also wants to make sure his son keeps believing in hope and goodness. McCarthy represents the fire within them with the actual physical fire. The physical fire serves to emphasize the importance of this theme in the novel. Apr 26, AM. In the book everytime they say something bad about fire, then they mention something good about it. I believe that by doing this the author wants to express that eventhough in the book fire is like the main cause of all the suffering in the book, one of the mayor causes of the apocalypse it's not that bad.
The can of Coke symbolizes the consumer society that is now dead. It represents the remnants of materialism that has lost its meaning in the post apocalyptic world. It also represents compassion and a few seconds of pleasure for the man and boy. The flare gun also symbolizes loneliness. Although the man often claims good people exist, he makes no attempt to find any.
He behaves as if there is no chance of ever again approaching other people and forming a community. It represents the journey through life, which is sought with peril and ends inevitably in death. The two roads symbolize the choices that one has to make in life.
It is very important to make the right choice because we can never retrace our path and go back. One road would lead on to another and there is no coming back.
One chooses a particular direction, and the choice determines every other event that one may encounter. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Philosophy What does the road represent in the road?
Ben Davis May 5, What does the road represent in the road? Who is the road by? The man and the boy are in constant peril, at every turn contending with the dangers of a vast and indifferent universe, and with the violence that lurks in the hearts of men. They encounter unspeakable horrors, things no child or man or woman should ever see or even imagine. Things for which there should be no words.
And yet McCarthy finds the words, rendering his nightmare vision in prose as haunting and unsparing as the vision itself. To read this book is to peer into the all-consuming darkness that lies beyond the faint and flickering light of the stories we tell ourselves about life and death and good and evil and humanity and God.
I believe The Road is a profoundly hopeful book. Yes, it is dark and violent, and on its surface it is bleak almost beyond description. Yes, I understand that many people come away from it feeling traumatized. He is saying hope is the most important part of being human.
Hope is the fire we carry to light our way in the darkness. Hope is how we survive. In The Road these are false hopes, relics of a fragile and fleeting civilization, insubstantial as dust and ashes. If McCarthy intends to imply the futility of anything, it is the futility of false hope. False hope is a delusion, a siren song that distracts from the singular focus required to survive in a dangerous world. The dreams tempt him with their fantasy, but he is not fooled by these visions or by any others of the late world:.
The promise of simplicity, of safety. To wake from such dreams requires conscious effort, and it is something the man must learn—the discipline of seeing the world as it is, not as he wishes it to be. Perhaps as readers we can be forgiven for indulging in false hope from time to time, but on the road there is no such luxury. At best, clinging to false hope ends with the man and the child dying of starvation or exposure, or being enslaved by a bloodcult. At worst, they get eaten by cannibals. The world of The Road is a cold, dead place, but not without hope.
Photo : Phil Sangwell. CC BY 2. The novel was adapted into a motion picture starring Viggo Mortensen as the man and Kodi Smith-McPhee as the boy. It is the opposite of false hope, as the man explains to the boy:. Pragmatic hope is vigilant, always prepared, always on the lookout for both opportunity and danger.
But everything the man does is predicated on the promise of tomorrow—not a wishful future of golden glory, but simply another day in which his son is alive in the world. This is the most fundamental human hope, and perhaps the most optimistic.
0コメント