The Road - Last Blog

"'I want to be with you.'  'You cant.'  'Please.'  'You cant.  You have to carry the fire.'  'I dont 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'" (278-279).  The man and the boy have always been "the good guys" because they "carry the fire."  The still have hope, and they still have love for each other.  Throughout The Road, the boy asks if there are other good guys, and the man says yes, as any good father would, but the reader never knows if there actually are other good guys out there.  My doubt that there were any more good guys left decreased as the story went on, especially after the man and boy's encounter with "Ely," and the man who tries to steal their belongings when they are on the beach.  When the man leaves the thief to die, I was skeptical as to whether or not the man himself had turned into a bad guy, because as the boy points says, "But we did kill him" (260).  As the man is dying, he brings back up the concept of "the fire" that boy must now "carry" on his own.  The father is dying and the boy is now the only person who has any love left inside him, love for his dead father.  That fire might have burned out, because because the boy was going to die.  But "goodness finds the little boy" (281).  The "veteran of old skirmishes" comes while "the fire" is still burning, and by offering to take the boy with him, he will save the boy and the fire will not burn out.  The boy has come upon another group of people who will become his family, and the fire inside the boy will continue to burn for his them, as well as for his dad, who started the fire.