Lit Log: The Road // God’s Prophet

In “The Road ” by Cormac McCarthy, there are significant mentions of “carrying the fire”(83) and good versus bad guys. Starting from the very beginning of the book, a child leads the man towards a dream. In that dream he sees a creature— “it’s mouth dripping from the rhinestone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sighless as the eggs of spiders’ ‘. As the book came to its end, there was continuous mention of the “creature”. These creatures symbolize humans— mouth dripping with hunger and greed. The dream was a message sent from God to the man, foreshadowing the future.

The man mentions his kid as a “warrant”. (5) Warrant means authority and justification which all connects to the dad trying to justify every action as for the boy’s own good. He continues to claim that it was his “job” (74) and that he was “appointed to do that by God”. (77) My assumption is that he was meant to die but God needed him to play an important role in saving humanity. There was a mention in the book about wanting to die but too scared of death. I believe that was how the man felt when he was able to die so he agreed to God’s suggestion. On page 12-13 when the boy was asleep, the man whispered “Are you there? Will I see you at the end? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul?” Analyzing this quote, he was obviously talking to you God— “Will I see you at the end?” was the man asking once he died, will he be able to go to heaven and see God after his duty is fulfilled (he knows full well he was going to die)— “Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul?” was his way of questioning God’s actions. Maybe it is because humans will never understand what God is doing.

From context clues, God seems to be trying to destroy the world he created and rebuilding it as a punishment to humanity. Again, we don’t know why he is doing so. Believers of God: prophets in the bible also had moments where they would question God. On page 170, Ely said “There is no God and we are his prophets” which means that he doesn’t believe in God but the “word of God” (such as morals and the basis of humanity) exists within people. After the man died and the boy was left alone, he met people who claimed that they are the good guys and carry the fire.