In the novel The Road written by Cormac McCarthy, one of the main themes is innocence, which is reflected exclusively in the character of the boy. At the beginning of the novel we see how the boy does not understand this apocalyptic situation, and in the vast majority of the time all his fear is manifested through constant crying throughout the novel. However, as the cusp of the novel builds, we see how the boy adapts new behaviors that give the reader the impression that he is somehow beginning to mature. This change takes shape in section six of the novel (pages 130-161).
In section four of the book, McCarthy describes the boy as still innocent, but gives a foreshadowing of the direction this character would later take with the following quote: “He seemed like a sad and lonely changeling boy heralding the arrival of a show.” walking”. in the county and the town that does not know that behind him all the players have been led away by wolves” (McCarthy 81). Analyzing these lines we see how the author paints the figure of a sad and lonely child, who is heralded by ” the arrival of a traveling show in shire and village”. This first part is the first clue that is given to the reader, since it means that something is going to happen in the future. This situation that is supposed to happen in the future will go unnoticed -perhaps only for the characters in the story but not for the readers – because the words “behind him” are used, obviously indicating something unexpected. Likewise, “the players” refers to his father and his son, in particular the son, and “the wolves” refers to an enemy that both the father, and especially his son, will have to face. As mentioned above, this entire quote gives the reader a hint that a situation will occur in the coming sections where both the father and the son will be involved against a common enemy, which will cause the boy to develop a degree of three hundred and sixty change that will eventually make him lose his innocence, mature and begin to understand the true reality.
In section six we see how the child begins to develop new behaviors: we see how the child adopts different ways of responding to situations and also changes the way he addresses his father. On several occasions we see how the child becomes more demanding with respect to his father; he demands that his father tell him the truth about what he is living little by little. Such is the case when he demands his father to promise under no circumstances to kill other humans to eat and thus survive: ‘We wouldn’t eat anybody, would we?’ and even he demands an answer from her again when he says ‘Even if we are starving?’ (McCarthy 136).
Furthermore, we see how the child begins to pay more attention to his surroundings. At the moment when they are looking for goods in the house and in the bunker, it is noticeable how the boy has learned from his father and begins to pay more attention to the vital things they need to survive. This idea is represented when the child mentions that ‘he saw a gascan in the corner behind the door’, and it is also shown how his rationalist thinking along with his feeling of survival develops when the child mentions that ‘they could use the gasoline and it would burn’ (McCarthy 141).
Later in Section six we see how even after having found so much food, resources, and even mattresses to sleep inside a bunker, basically the paradise that every man would have wanted in an apocalypse to survive, they make the boy question if all that is real: ‘The richness of a vanished world. Why is this here? Is this real?’ (McCarthy 147). This attitude causes the reader to realize that the child is growing on a psychological and individual level when questioning whether something is real. As an effect this makes a great impression of the child who is on the way to maturity.
Another example that reflects the maturity that the child is acquiring is when he tells his father if ‘[he] think[s] [that they] should thank the people’ (McCarthy 154) that they left all the resources in the bunker. Also, the boy is more interested in helping his father develop new ideas that could help them survive. This critical thinking that the child develops is reflected when they are seeing how to best take advantage of everything that the bunker offers them and the child comes up with new ideas saying ‘We could take two of them’ and ‘I could push one’ ( McCarthy 159). Clearly, this predisposition of the child demonstrates a high level of maturity which would initially be a different behavior where perhaps the child would only have observed what his father does, terrified by the apocalypse, instead of helping him and being more involved in the plot.
We even see how the boy begins to observe male behaviors in his father when he shaved himself: ‘[The father] shaved himself with a plastic safety razor. The boy watched’ (McCarthy 161). This example clearly demonstrates how the child begins to show interest in behaviors that an adult male takes on; again a symbol of maturity.
As a conclusion, the boy who was once that boy tormented by terror and fear, is now taking an internal evolution, which clearly marks him as a round character, towards maturity and therefore towards the path of adulthood. This point of the story is critical because finally the evolution that this character is carrying out is perceived more for the readers. In future chapters this change should be even more explicit, and it may perhaps involve tight situations in which the child has to do even the unimaginable.
“The Road to maturity starts when you fave your pain head-on and take responsibility.”
This essay compromises the transition from childhood to maturity that takes shape in the last sections of the novel The Road. Even though this literary piece is short in length, it provides a brief view of the boy’s character development in the novel. Nevertheless, I wish I could have more time to write this essay. Since the theme of maturity throughout this novel fascinates me a lot, I wish I could have done a more detailed essay.