Extrait the road

"Lesson" (Main ideas)  Final extract The Road

The extract begins with a brief episode about the boy caring (again) about other people, here a little boy. He's still worried about this boy that he glimpsed (saw briefly) in a house a long time ago. Even if his father reassures him, the boy is not entirely convinced and remains anxious. The boy has grown, progressed during his journey. Let's not forget that he is very young himself. His father is now quite ill, but the boy still has time for others.

Then, first and foremost (avant toute chose) we learn that the boy's father dies (he had a very bad cough, and had been shot in the leg with an arrow). The boy promises he will never forget him, and he keeps that promise, as it is said in the final paragraph which also describes  the boy much later , "she (a mother) would talk to him", "he didn't forget".

We are reminded of My Abandonment, in which Caroline always remembers her father and thinks about him.

So, the boy has to look out for himself, and his father has given him a pistol to help him. Although the boy has grown and developed as a human-being, he is still young and recognizes that that he needs to be with others to survive. He seeks ("And can I go with you?") the help of a family that have been walking near him (worried about him with his sick father), but must first be reassured that they are "good guys". We can see that he still talks in the same way as he did with his father. Another example is that interestingly he uses an expression that must have come from his father, when he asks the man of the family : "Are you carrying the fire ?", which the man doesn't really understand. "Carrying the fire"  means helping civilisation to go forward, and in this context it means surviving/survival, but also behaving like a civilised human-being, not being a cannibal and helping others.

The final paragraph of this extract, the last but one (l'avant-dernier) of the book confirms the impression of hope that we have at the end, despite the father's death.The breath of God is passing through the boy, and through Man as it has always done (the father says something similar with "Goodness (...) will again", at the beginning of the extract).

The boy will survive and Man will survive. We notice that the boy and his father are never named in this novel - they represent Man, humanity, mankind.  

In conclusion, the extract is hopeful (and makes the book hopeful). Civilisation will continue (and the boy will be helped).

Other novels

We may be reminded of other works of literature. Two spring to mind, as they both deal with the aftermath of a disaster.

1 The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, 1954. After a plane crash, a group of schoolboys from Britain survive but are left to their own devices on a little island. It turns out very badly, with everyone for himself, before they are finally rescued.

2  Life of Pi (pronounced like "I"), by Yann Martel, 2002 is about a journey across the ocean of a boy (Pi) and some animals who have survived  the sinking of the ship they were on.

...