Theme Of Fire In The Road

It is human nature for a person to go through extreme measures in order to satisfy their needs, even if it means disregarding concern for others or causing harm to them. This selfish habit is seen in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, where the world has been completely demolished by an unknown cause, leaving most survivors without hope. Their only means for sustenance is to become cannibals. However, an unnamed man and his son challenge that norm by reminding themselves that they are people who “carry the fire.” Throughout the novel, this phrase carries a symbolic meaning where the fire represents human resilience as well as the hope for humanity in a place where all of it is abandoned.

Cormac McCarthy’s brain child “The Road” is a postapocalyptic novel that illustrates the harsh reality of the world. This story serves as a truth that humans, when stripped of their humanity will take desperate measures in order to survive. The reader learns; however even when it seems all hope is lost good can still be found in the world. The son character of this story illuminates this philosophy. He is a foil of his father and shows how even a person never accustomed to the luxury of a normal life can still see goodness.

“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 3). Towards the beginning of the novel it is noticeable that fire is praised by the protagonist and those who choose to conform to society’s rules. In this quote in particular, fire is being used as a tool against literature.

In the novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the expressions, settings and the actions by various literary devices and the protagonist’s struggle to survive in the civilization full of darkness and inhumanity. The theme between a father and a son is appearing, giving both the characters the role of protagonist. Survival, hope, humanity, the power of the good and bad, the power of religion can be seen throughout the novel in different writing techniques. He symbolizes the end of the civilization or what the world had turned out to be as “The Cannibals”. The novel presents the readers with events that exemplify the events that make unexpected catastrophe so dangerous and violent. The novel reduces all human and natural life to the

Fire represents a lot of the things in this novel. A woman name Mrs. Schachter was howling, pointing through the window. “Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” (pg 25) Elie said him and the other saw a real fire this time. “This time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky.” (pg. 28) Elie said they stared at the flames, “We stared at the flames in the darknes, A wretched stench floated in the air.” (pg. 28) And in front of them the the flaming smoke was the smell of burning flesh.

It is clear that they only have each other’s company and that the father feels that his only job is to protect his son from any danger. However, the son’s purpose is to “carry the fire”, a metaphor that keeps readers guessing about what the fire reflects. It could be that

These all add to the theme of society throughout the entire novel. Furthermore, fire is just like the Force from Star Wars. Since the Force can cause immense pleasure, change to the extremes, and destroy merciless. Fire is the Earthly version of the Force! They both can even be controlled by anyone who learns how to use it. The burning plasma called fire symbolized many things through the novel, but the ones with the most impact on the novel was pleasure, change and

In the beginning of the Lord of the Flies, the fire is used as a form of hope for rescue and survival. When the boys first arrive on the island, Ralph decides that rescue should be their main focus. The boys build a signal fire to attract any passing ships. He puts Jack and his hunters in charge of keeping the fire going. One day the hunters let the fire burn out. When a ship passes without seeing the fire, Ralph panics because they have lost a chance at being rescued. Golding describes the aftermath of the ship passing, “The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel lay ready” (Golding 68). When this incident occurs, Ralph

How does Cormac McCarthy’s Novel The Road, challenge a reader’s ideas, beliefs, experiences and values?

We often consider the world to be filled with core truths, such as how people should act or what constitutes a good or bad action. In The Road, McCarthy directly challenges those preconceptions by making us question the actions of the characters and injecting a healthy dose of uncertainty into the heroes’ situation. From the very beginning, the characters and their location remain ambiguous. This is done so that the characters are purposely anonymous, amorphously adopting all people. While on the road, the order of the day is unpredictability; whether they find a horde of road-savages or supplies necessary for his son’s survival is impossible to foretell. While traveling, the boy frequently asks “are we the good guy” and the father always replies with “yes” or “of course,” but as the story progresses this comes into question.

Throughout the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy repetitively uses symbolism to portray several deeper themes throughout the novel. One theme of the symbolism that is mentioned many times in The Road is the fire. A significant occurrence of this is when the man is discussing the fire with the boy. '' 'Is the fire real? I don`t know where it.' 'Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it' "(McCarthy 279).The fire represents the hope for humanity, and the man sees the fire inside the boy. The boy shows compassion for everything, alive or dead. Not only does the fire symbolize the hope for humanity but it represents strength and the will to live. During the novel fires are lit to keep The Man and Boy safe and warm but the fire keeps them alive even in the heart of the storm.

The encounters and interactions the man and boy had while on the road help develop McCarthy’s larger theme of humanity losing its selflessness when it’s in danger. For example, while the man and the boy are traveling to the coast they come across a burnt man, half-dead lying in the road. After some observation, the boy asks the man if they could “help him” but is continuously shot down by his father who repeatedly tells him to “stop it” (McCarthy 50). The Road’s setting is one of the strongest over the weak, those who can’t survive for themselves they simply won’t. This burnt man, who was struck by lightning, is an example of that as he is now in no condition to scavenge for food and medical supplies and will probably just die where he currently sits. The boy, realizing this, wanted to do something to give the man even a small chance at survival, but the man knew he was a lost cause and should be left to die. The boy and his overwhelming desire to help the dying man is representative of old society and its pressure to help those with lesser than you, ideals that were result of religious codes and churches. But in a world where none of that matters or is present, the man is what humanity has become, selfish being whom only care about

The symbolic meaning of fire is demonstrated throughout the book in many different fashions but mainly it is portrayed as a symbol of life and social order. If

“The Road” depicts a solemn and deteriorating environment that can no longer provide the fundamentals to a society due to the nuclear disaster. The sudden depletion of the resources within their environment made it difficult for the father and the son to find sustenance. They were constantly traveling towards the South looking for safe places to situate themselves because the father knew that they would not be able to survive the nuclear winter. The genre of the novel is post-apocalyptic science fiction because it revolves around a dismantling society. Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” depicts how environmental destruction finally gave sense for people to value the world and what it had to offer.

In a desolate world ravaged by fire, a boy and his father trudge across the countryside. They encounter people in their most desperate times where their motives are unpredictable and noone can be trusted. The boy and his father try to maintain their morality while facing starvation and having to deal with unpredictable people they encounter on the road. Cormac McCarthy in his novel The Road, uses the theme of hope to demonstrate the human trait that purpose is essential to survival.