Themes in The Road Essay

The Road- Passage Master

I will do what I promised, he whispered. No matter what I will not send you into the darkness alone. (248) father to son.

This is an important passage from the novel as it shows the father being extremely worried about his young sons health. When the boy becomes very ill they father and he cannot find the proper materials to help him as they are trekking through a ruined city. They boy is forced to wait out his illness and hope for the best. I found irony in this passage when the father says I will not send you into the darkness alone because throughout the novel the father becomes very sick. He is puking up blood almost every morning and knows that he doesnt have much longer to live. At the end of the novel the father essentially leaves his son to fend for himself because the father dies. The boy is not alone for long because he soon meets a man who takes him in and treats him as his own. As an audience we know that the father and son share an unconditional love. However the father makes a promise that he cannot keep when he tells the boy he will not send him into the darkness alone. With death being a prominent theme in the novel, this passage is perfectly fitting.

Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that the women, perhaps dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites ill clothed against the cold and fitted in dog collars and yoked each to each.(92)

Another theme which is expressed throughout the novel is lawlessness, which means lack of law. When the world was essentially destroyed by an unknown force the laws were disregarded which caused that word to then become very dangerous and uncontrolled. People separated into two different groups the good guys and the bad guys. The father and son were a part of the good guys as their motive was just to keep themselves safe and get to the south. However the bad guys participated in things such as cannibalism, killing people, and making slaves. This passage shows the bad guys participating in enslaving people and treating many unjust. Since the world is destroyed, they are left with no authority. These men participating in treating others terribly for their own good for some reason think it is their duty to be the rulers and decided that fate of their fellow citizens. The bad guys in this novel use the lack of authority to their advantage in a selfish way, so they ensure their own survival and safe being.