Father and Son

The Road: a tale of a post-apocalyptic world where darkness lies everywhere; there isn't a sun, warmth of any kind is nonexistent, and a chilling, everlasting cold suspends in the air. In the story, there are two main characters where we are told of their journey through the lands towards the southern part of the country--a father and his son.

The relationship between these two is like any other parental relationship, though with more sense of reality than present day times. The father still acts like a parental unit to the boy--caring and protective--and the boy, despite everything he's currently going through in this world, still acts like a kid at heart. Such an instance occurs when the boy--as he and his father are sitting in their temporary camp site--asks the man to read to him as well as leave their lamp on.

Compared to parental relationships of current day times, the relationship the boy and the father share is (as I said earlier) more realistic and truthful than most. In The Road, the son isn't afraid to ask his father about death and basically accepts the fact that they'll eventually die anyway. Most kids would be afraid to speak of something like that (I know I would be if I had been told this around his age), but I'm sure parents would avoid the question if asked--unlike the father in this story. There's no sugarcoating his words...the father just flat out gives his son the truth. Something about that, in itself, is incredibly admirable. It is a subject that is normally explained lightly or in such a fashion that it seems that the way it was thought out was to be a 'sweet' way of putting things: I know that's how my mother always told me of death...when God was ready to claim me for the Heavens he would take me, and as long as I did things correctly and took care of myself, I'd be able to live for a good amount of time.