The Man and The Boy happen upon a campfire with a spit. On the spit there's the charred body of an infant. He picks up The Boy and carries him to The Road. This shows the difference between good guys and bad guys. The bad guys are people that have lost hope, accepted and surrender to the world of darkness, while the good guys like the man and the boy are carrying their hopes. They are trying their best not to surrender; keep on fighting against these bad guys.
“The water was so clear. He held it to the light. A single bit of sediment coiling in the jar (pg 123).”
The jar represents this world of darkness in which the water represents purity, meaning good guys, while the little sediment in the jar symbolizes the bad guys. This represents carrying the fire because it is hard to find good water in a world full of darkness and pain. The water gives them hope to carry and courage to fight against the sediment, meaning bad guys. The pure water helps them to carry on and not lose their hope.
“[The Boy:] We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?
[The Man:] No. Of course not.
[The Boy:] Even if we were starving?
[The Man:] We’re starving now.
[The Boy:] You said we weren’t.
[The Man:] I said we weren’t dying. I didn’t say we weren’t starving.
[The Boy:] But we wouldn’t .
[The Man:] No. We wouldn’t.
[The Boy:] No matter what.
[The Man:] No. No matter what.
[The Boy:] Because we’re the good guys.
[The Man:] Yes (pg 175).”
This quote explains the difference between the good guys and bad guys. The good guys are people who are carrying the fire, meaning they are carrying the hope and not give into the culture of the bad guys. They are trying not to blend into the culture of the bad guys, who are using cannibalism as source of food. The man in this quote reassures the boy that they are the good guys who are carrying the fire; since they are the good guys they are never going to eat people, even if they are starving to death.
"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 (pg 77)."
The lines occur after the man has shot and killed the attacker who threatened the boy with a knife at his throat. The passage also underscores the underlying difference in morality between the man and the boy. To the man, his killing is justified because it was committed in the act of saving his son and this responsibility was assigned to him by God. The boy, however, is concerned about the nature of the act, regardless of the circumstances. He wonders whether, having murdered someone, they can still be considered the good guys. The father unequivocally still considers them good, or at least wants to reassure his son that he feels that way, protecting his son at all costs.
“We’re not going to kill it, are we Papa?
No. We’re not going to kill it (pg 82).”
The quote explains the difference between good guys and bad guys by saying that good guys are those people who are not going to kill to obtain food, basic need of surviving and keep on going or starve to death but not kill anyone to obtain food, while on the other hand the bad guys are people who will kill anyone to obtain food. People who do not want to kill anyone are the ones who are carrying the fire because it represents the hope, light in a world full of darkness to carry on without giving in to the culture of the bad guys.
“On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt (pg 110).”
This scene is that the "bad guys" are not just cannibals, pushed beyond the imaginable limits of hunger. They're actually keeping and raising human beings like you would chickens or cows. This relates to carrying the fire because these bad guys are the ones who are not carrying the fire, while the people are who are carrying the fire, they don’t not kill other people and use them as a source of food. Carrying the fire gives them hope to go on the journey without giving in the culture of the bad guys.
“Crate upon crate of canned goods. Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef. Hundreds of gallons of water in ten gallon plastic jerry jugs. Paper towels, toiletpaper,paper plates. Plastic trashbags stuffed with blankets. He held his forehead in his hand. Oh my God, he said (pg 138).”
This quote explains that even though the good guys have difficulties in finding food and shelter for themselves, they always get food and shelter over time. This represents carrying the fire because they don’t want to give in to the bad guys, or die, so they find food over time and this helps them go through the difficult times and gives them hope to carry on and not lose hope.
“Hard and brown and shriveled. He wiped it with the cloth and bit into it. Dry and almost tasteless. But an apple. He ate it entire, seeds and all (pg 121).”
The quote explains that even in the world full of darkness, where it is hard to find food, the boy found an apple. Although the apple was tasteless it represents the hope to carry in a world without any food. Although it is a bitter apple, it helps the boy not to give into the culture of the bad guys and gives him hope to carry on with his live in the world of cannibalism.
"You have to carry the fire.
I don't know how to.
Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it (pg 278)."
Just before he dies, the man tells the child that he has been the one carrying the fire the entire time. The man says this to convince the child not to give up, to keep going down The Road. Perhaps the notion of carrying the fire is just a crude myth adopted by the two to keep on going, and the man tries to use the myth to inspire the child not to give up after he dies, but perhaps there is more to it than this. Carrying the fire and being a good guy are closely related because only good guys carry the fire. Prior to this point, the man has always maintained that they are the good guys and that they are carrying the fire. As he is dying, the man seems to be saying that the child is the true good guy.
“[The Man]: Listen, we have to talk. That man back there... There's not many good guys left, that's all. We have to watch out for the bad guys. We have to just... keep carrying the fire.
[The Boy]: What fire?
[The Man]: The fire inside you.
[The Boy]: Are we still the good guys?
[The Man]: Yes, we're still the good guys. Of course we are.
[The Boy]: And we always will be? No matter what happens?
[The Man]: Always will (pg 134).”
This quote explains that the man and the boy are good guys because they are carrying the fire, meaning they are carrying goodness, kindness and compassion in their hearts for other people. The father tells this to the boy before dying and wants to carry the fire in the new generation to revive humanity and morality. He wants the boy to keep the fire meaning keep the kindness, compassion and respect other people and that would help keep the future save from the bad guys.
“[The Boy:] Do you remember that little boy, Papa?
[The Man:] Yes. I remember him.
[The Boy:] Do you think that he's all right that little boy?
[The Man:] Oh yes. I think he's all right.
[The Boy:] Do you think he was lost?
[The Man:] No. I dont think he was lost.
[The Boy:] I'm scared that he was lost.
[The Man:] I think he's all right.
[The Boy:] But who will find him if he's lost? Who will find the little boy?
[The Man:] Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again (pg 178).”
This quote explains the goodness the boy has in the heart and the morals: help and respect other people. He feels compassion and sympathy for the little boy and that shows his morals of caring and compassion towards the little boy. It makes the boy a good guy because he cares, loves and wants to help other people and that shows that he is carrying the fire. He feels he should help the boy because he still has his humanity within him and he should help everyone that comes across a difficulty like that boy.
“She watched him across the small flame. We used to talk about death, she said. We don’t any more. Why is that (pg 56)?”
This quote explains that carrying the fire symbolizes the hope to keep living in that world with darkest times but the man’s wife lost her hope and didn’t wanted to live to in a world full of chaos and cannibalism. She was also carrying the fire, meaning at first she also had a lot of hope but as time went by her flame starting decreasing, meaning she lost her hope and eventually die because she couldn’t bear the suffering and the pain of a world full of darkness. She died because she lost her hope in a world full of cannibals. She begged and pleads for death because she didn’t want to live in a world full of hatred. She didn’t want to live anymore because she lost the flame to carry on in a world full of selfishness.
“As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart (pg 57).”
The quote explains that people who lost hope, meaning they don’t carry the fire anymore wanted to die, while the man and the boy are trying to survive this world and not trying to give into the culture of the bad guys, the man’s wife couldn’t. She was pleading for “eternal nothingness” meaning she was pleading for death because she lost all her hope for living.
[The Man:] Take the gun.
[The Boy:] I don’t want to take the gun.
[The Man:] I didn’t ask if you wanted it. Take it (pg 210).
This quote was said when both the father and the son knew that the father was about to die soon. The father wanted his son to carry the gun because he wants to protect his son from any attackers. The father knows that the son is carrying the fire, meaning he knows how to survive in this world with humanity and hope.
Cormac McCarthy uses the symbol of carrying the fire that represents the hope to survive in the world of cannibalism, darkness, fear and pain. He uses the fire as a way to differentiate between good guys and bad guys. By doing that the father was able to teach the difference between right and wrong to his son. He was able to save and protect him from the bad guys and in end the boy learns right from wrong in this society, and learns how to survive in a world full of hatred, selfishness and cannibalism.
Cited Source:
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.
