Schaub and The Road

In his essay "Secular Scripture and Cormac McCarthy's The Road," Thomas H. Schaub discusses the importance of spirituality and belief from the inside-- that which drives the characters of the novel. The author alludes to an idea from Kierkegaard's "The Absolute Paradox," in which he states, "the individual is always inside his thought and his reasoning, always attempting to reach by thought that which thought cannot think"(Schaub 153). In stating this, Schaub is emphasizing the concept of the man and the boy's journey being in solitude, in that they are experiencing this test of faith by themselves. For the man and the boy have nothing that keeps them going other than their own will to survive and their belief in a higher power. He is trying to focus on the importance of keeping the spiritual aspect of their journey in their hearts and how this is ultimately what drives the father to fight imminent death for his son, and for the son to agree to move on with another family at the end of the novel.

According to the author, the "father's foundation, from the beginning of the novel, is the son...the father's strategy is to construct meaning from the inside"(158). It is the father's duty to keep the boy alive and to lead him to the coast where there is a chance that the boy will find something greater, find more "good guys" like him, and have the possibility of defeating this gruesome post-apocalyptic world. It is in this desire to "construct meaning from the inside" that the father develops the phrase "carrying the fire" to motivate his son to keep on fighting for survival. It is exactly how Schaub asserts in his essay: "he[the father] tries to pass his values on to his son, in part through the language of "fire" he uses to justify their lives" (160). At the end of the novel, when the father is dying and he tells the son to keep on living and to keep fighting for his life, the boy asks, "Is it real? The fire?" and the father answers, "Yes it is"(McCarthy 278). The boy then questions further, "Where is it? I don't know where it is" to which the father responds, "Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it"(McCarthy 279). This establishment of "carrying the fire" is what allows for the boy to move on past his father's death. The father constructs this concept from his own thoughts and own beliefs, and passes it on to his son so that he too can be faithful in times when life is hard. The boy truly does believe that he is "carrying the fire" because the father instills that value in him during their time together. It is this belief on the inside that drives the boy to no longer want to die along with his father. It is evident that the father's repeated assertion that they are "carrying the fire" "is a strategy rather than a belief, a recourse to religious language and forms in the absence of any foundation for them in the world"(161).

Not only does the phrase "carrying the fire" have meaning in that the father created it so that the boy could believe in something on their journey, but the author of the novel also uses it symbolically to symbolize goodness. The boy embodies this goodness in every aspect of his journey. Often referring to himself and to his father as "the good guys," the boy is ignorant of the dangers and reality of the world that he lives in. It is his ignorance that makes him good however, because he does not falter under the evil and maliciousness of the common will to survive in this world. He wants to help others in all situations: such as the boy and the dog that he sees for only a split second, the old man Ely, and he does not even want to harm the man who attempted at stealing all that the boy and his father had to live on. It is this complete and total goodness that keeps the boy from stopping his journey after his father dies, for he believes that there is goodness in all human beings and that is why he joins the other man and his family. The boy is carrying the fire, furthermore carrying all human capacity to be good, and ultimately his unwavering belief in this fire is what allows for him to continue his journey in this desolate land.