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What Does The Man Teach The Boy How To Survive

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During times of crisis people depend on each other for help and being with each other can help you strive to survive. The man is only living for one reason and that is for the boy. The boy is keeping the man going because the man needs to help him and show him how to survive. “The father's responsibility is to save the son--to scavenge for food and supplies, to fend off murderers and worse--while the boy's is to preserve their humanity (NEED IN TEXT CITATION SOURCE 1).” The man has taught the boy how to kill himself with the gun if the cannibals get to him. They have two bullets in the beginning of the novel and it is for defending themselves and possibly using it on themselves. “Yet this road trip is like a nightmare from which the father …show more content…

The man and the boy will survive if they stay together. They are dependent on each other because the man can teach the boy how to survive. The man is alive because he needs to look out for his son. “The father's sole remaining referent of sacred idiom is his son. In sustaining his son's breath, he sustains not only his own capacity for life but for some belief in life's continuance, in the value of life (NEED TEXT CITATION SOURCE 3).” The boy is the only thing that is pushing the man to survive in the world. There are threats on the road and the man and the boy need to protect themselves from these threats. Survival takes skill and skill can be equipped from over time. The man has learned these skills and now he must pass it down to the boy. They scavenge for food and they are limited on supplies. All they have is a shopping cart full of somethings. They are constantly moving to get to the warmer destination on the west, the beach. “As part of his caretaking, he tries to pass his values on to his son, in part through the language of "fire" he uses to justify their lives and to motivate the boy. The boy himself is drawn toward death, but the father assures him that "nothing bad is going to happen." "Because we're carrying the fire," the boy says, having been told this earlier. "Yes," the father affirms. "Because we're carrying the fire" (83) (NEED IN TEXT CITATION SOURCE 3).” The pain brought upon the young boy is …show more content…

The boy didn't answer. You have to talk to me. Okay. You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand? Yes. He sat there cowled in the blanket. After a while he looked up. Are we still the good guys? he said. Yes. We're still the good guys. And we always will be. Yes. We always will be (NEED IN TEXT CITATION FOR MAIN SOURCE.” The passage from the novel is showing that the man will do anything and whatever it takes to protect and keep the boy safe. He is also explaining to the boy that he would do it again. You have to be able to do bad things in order to survive. "It might well bad as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death (NEED IN TEXT CITATION FOR MAIN SOURCE).” This passage in the novel is stating that the man wouldn’t be living if he didn’t have a son to look after. He would have ended his life and not have to live and scavenge in a cold environment. He needs to be there for his son. He needs to show his son the right way and the humane way to survive.

Surviving alone is a difficult thing to do. In the novel The Road the man and the boy depend on each other to survive. They help each other push forward and move to the west. The man would be dead if it weren’t for the boy and the boy would be dead if it weren’t for the man.
The necessity to survive

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