“Carrying the Fire”

With the conclusion of The Road, there are many unknown factors that McCarthy leaves the readers to think about and analyze. “Carrying the fire” was an often phrase the man used when talking to the boy. When the man dies, the boy is left to “carry the fire” which in my opinion I believe it means to carry on the good that is left in the world. The man is telling the boy to be a good person, and carry on the good memories and history the man taught him. Also with the ending of the novel switching to talk about brook trout and valleys, I believe it is the man’s last way of “carrying the fire” because I believe the last paragraph of the novel is the man’s thoughts and remembrances of life before the apocalypse. This ending concludes the novel almost like a dream. The whole novel was also told like a dream, in a slow and specific way but distant, and giving the readers the ability to remember certain things, but not all. 

With dreams being the only way for the man and the boy to escape their reality, it highlighted the importance of memories and experiences. It also alters our sense of reality, as the whole novel itself was told like a dream. In one of the man’s dreams with his wife on the beach, in that moment he thought to himself that “If he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.” which shows he had an appreciation of life, and I think that was one of McCarthy’s most important messages throughout the novel. Also, I believe that McCarthy wanted the readers to stop and think about what is really real in our lives, and what the purpose of life even is, or if in fact, we are living in some kind of dream.