Trout In The Road

In the last paragraph of The Road, McCarthy describes the beautiful brook trout that once lived in the streams. His description of the trout greatly contrasts most the novel. The landscape in The Road is barren, dark, cold, filthy, and devoid of life. However, after the death of the boy’s father, McCarthy chooses to end his novel with a description of trout whom “on their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming” and who “in the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.” Depending on how a reader interprets this final paragraph, determines what they think will happen to the boy and his future in this post-apocalyptic world. I first saw the trout as a symbol
of hope. The passage has a positive tone overall, and I thought that there was a chance that creatures such as the trout could still be alive and thriving. It is very unlikely that all living things died out after the unknown disasters struck. There are lifeforms that can survive the most extreme conditions, and if they endured, the environment will begin to rebuild itself bit by bit. However, this process could take longer than the human life span, especially a life expectancy lessened by famine, illness, and homelessness. The probability of the boy and his new group finding enough to eat- without becoming cannibalistic- for much longer is not very likely. The passage also describes the “maps” the fish carry as “of a thing which could not be put back. Not to be made right again.” The world will never be as it was before; perhaps, the new world to come will have a human existence. Despite its positive tone, the concluding paragraph still carries the same foreboding as the rest of the novel. Throughout the novel whether there was a better life elsewhere was a hope and an unknown; the ending of the novel is just as ambiguous and just as optimistic.