What Is The Relationship Between The Man And The Boy In The Road

McCarthy’s The Road in a brief 287 pages fell from coldy revealing prose to an unforgivingly graceful monologue about fear. As the Man and the Boy closed their wildly ruthless fight on the Road, the characters of the two are revealed, stretched paley on thin skeletons that are more bone than body. They know that one must not fear the Road to survive, because that means you are living for something, but one cannot survive on that fear for long. The Man learned this before his end. He learned that fear expires, and the Boy was forced the carry not only the fire, but the consequences. As both of their characters intermittently flirted with death, the Boy clung to the Man and everything that he had been taught: pistol, fire, good guy. But during
To keep the Boy’s faith in their survival, the Man assures him that they are the “good guys” and they are only doing what is right. For the Boy, the “good guys” are those that would live. For the Man, being a “good guy” means that even if there seems to be no reason to live, you find one anyways. The others are the “bad ones”, those who succumb to evil from hunger and become cannibals. There is an elegance intertwined through the Man’s simplistic categorization of man. Exclusively because he is just that, a man. There is an unreliability in his narrative that reminds the reader of the fact, but before anything else, he is the protector of the boy. Through this devotion, he has trained the Boy to see the world through two lenses: the good guys and the bad guys. After the Man’s death, stung by his sudden isolation he responds to the man who offers to welcome the Boy into their renegade group of nomads by saying, “How do I know you're one of the good guys?” To which the man responds, “You dont. You'll have to take a shot.” (283
When the Boy asked the Man, “Are you real brave?” so plainly, for instance and all the Man can respond with is: “Just medium.” There is no spectrum for bravery when mankind is fundamentally broken, and therefore the meaning behind it warps to favor the survivor who suffers the most, for they retains the most humanity. This is seen immediately after the Boy questions the Man about his bravery and asks, “What’s the bravest thing you ever did?” and the Man only said, “Getting up this morning... Dont listen to me. Come on, let’s go.” (172