Throughout the novel, Perry and Dick are altered from cruel, cold-blooded nuisances, whose actions seem to disregard human logic, into the anxious, pathetic, completely humanized people they are at the end of the …show more content…
More than once, the son seeks approval from his father that they are the "good guys" and that the "bad guys" are those who seek to hurt them--thieves, murderers, and cannibals. A symbol of the goodness in human determination and expectation is the "fire" that the father promises his son they carry. As a "good guy," the father and the son carry the fire internally, meaning that they endeavor to live under all environments. In such a world, however, the struggle between the good guys and the bad guys is not at all flawless. To the father, they are the "good guys," even though the father commits a murder for the protection of his son. The father does not contemplate acting violently in resistance of his son's survival