If there were ever a more dedicated father than the main character of The Road, I do not know him. It’s sad to think that I don’t know a father that I truly believe would go so far as to kill a man for his child. This man is beyond careful and beyond protective. He absolutely gives of himself for his child. His love knows no bounds.
In many ways I feel that the narrator is being made into an example of the lasting effects of true love. He is a pundit of love and loyalty in a world of viciousness and raw relations. He is the last of a dying race. He is the last, and he knows it. Earlier I referenced a quote where he says that he is the last one on the road. That he is the last of the men associated with God and abounding love.
He’s the survivor. And it is his sole mission to protect this last bit of innocence in the world. I feel that he is very much like Gatsby in this way. He is the last, in a God forsaken land, to have any sort of morals or feeling left. Everyone else has become like the land they’re trying to walk on and from, barren of anything resembling life and beauty. They are wastelands. They are without any of the things that make humanity human, or nature natural, as the case may be.
I think it is imperative, then, that we make the distinction between those who travel the road, and those who become a part of the road. Bandits and other dangers are sometimes described as road hazards, because they have become a part of the road. They are static and unchanging in their position. Travelers are just the opposite, though. It is important to note that the main characters are struggling between becoming a part of something easier, something less morally righteous.
The main characters are dynamic, they change their position and their lives by not becoming one with the road. They become one with travel and possibility in their seemingly endless search for a different life.
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