Much of the action of The Road consists of the protagonists’ daily struggle to survive. This creates a mood of constant suspense as death looms always overhead, and most other humans have turned to cannibalism. One of the novel’s central questions then is why to persevere in such a hellish existence. The man’s reason to keep struggling comes to him as the idea of “carrying the fire”: an idea that seems to consist, for him, of preserving the goodness or civilization of mankind by maintaining his basic humanity, having the strength to refrain from murder and cannibalism, and prioritizing a sense of love and protection for the boy’s compassion and naiveté. The woman, on the other hand, considers death better than living in the post-apocalyptic world.
Over the course of the novel the man creates more immediate goals to justify his survival, like reaching the coast or going south. In this way the road becomes the great symbol for the struggle to survive. The man has no reason to persevere except his love for the boy and his natural, human desire to keep going down “the road.” In the end, the going on itself is reason enough to go on. Even when the man dies, he gives up his earlier plan to kill the boy so as not to send him into the “darkness alone.” Instead he opts to pass on the “fire,” and he advises his son to keep going south and to remain as one of the “good guys” – the last humans to persevere against brutality.
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Survival and Perseverance appears in each chapter of The Road. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
Below you will find the important quotes in The Road related to the theme of Survival and Perseverance.
Cosby, Matt. "The Road Themes: Survival and Perseverance." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 11 Aug 2014. Web. 23 Apr 2019.
Cosby, Matt. "The Road Themes: Survival and Perseverance." LitCharts LLC, August 11, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2019. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-road/themes/survival-and-perseverance.