The Road Themes

In the post-apocalyptic setting of The Road, almost all animals, plants, and humans have died off because of some unnamed disaster. Because of this, death is a constantly looming figure – the land and sea are covered in darkness and ashes, nothing grows, and dead bodies litter the landscape. Death is so universally present that it is often personified as a character, like the woman describing her decision to commit suicide as taking death…

As there are only two main characters, a father and a son, The Road’s principal relationship is one of paternal love. The man and boy are “each the other’s world entire,” and it is only the man’s love for the boy that gives him the will to persevere. Their love is generally of the stark, silent kind, as the pair’s whole existence consists of surviving from one day to the next. Never in…

In the harsh world of The Road, everything depends on trusting or distrusting each other. On one level, there is a constant tension regarding whether or not the man should trust anyone he meets on the road. Some people are cannibals and rapists, while others will still steal to survive. The boy is more trusting than the man, as he is always trying to help people and give away precious food. This trustingness…

The present world of The Road is dark and full of death, and the only real color appears in the man’s dreams and memories. When he or the boy have nightmares they are just an extension of the present, where the worst has already happened, but in his good dreams the man returns to his happy memories of the past, and the world of nature and his wife. The boy never experienced the pre-apocalyptic world…