The Road Lit Log Henry U & Gabe R

The story starts with describing a setting in a cave with an otherworldly monster as it lurks from across a body of water. Though as readers we first don’t understand this scary creature, at the end of the book we come to understand this creature is death. Something the father is extraordinarily afraid of at this time. A few scenes later the boy and the man have a conversation about what the man would do if the boy dies. He tells the boy that he would kill himself so that he could be with him.This conversation should point the readers thoughts in the direction that death is a very normal or sensitized topic for them that they have learnt to be able to think about freely and in a different way. After this we get a flashback of the father talking to the boy’s mother. The mom is going to kill herself soon, and the man is obviously upset about this as he wants to live to help the boy survive. We can start to see themes of the man seeing death as “giving up” or quiting, as it leaves the boy out stranded by himself. Our map then jumps to a scene where the man is afraid the boy is going to get caught and eaten. We can see him prepare the boy to kill himself. This is obviously horrific to read, but it shows how the father sees the evil in the world. It’s one of the first times where our main character recognizes there are worse fates than death. This leads into the shortest quote, “This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up.” Though not mentioning death, readers can see the implications of the fathers meanings behind the “good guys” something he mentions often. The good guys are simply his fear of death, manifested in an idea. The ending of our map is where the man accepts his fate. He comes to terms with death. The man even starts to envy the dead. In the story, the author allows the father to grow into trusting his son to survive, seeing the responsibility in his child. Not seeing death as “giving up,” rather passing on the torch. “The fire.”