The Boy’s Loss of Innocence

The boy in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a christ-like figure, a golden-haired angel who is a last bastion of humanity and purity in the post-apocalyptic world, while the man himself is willing to use violence to protect the boy’s life. As they experience more and more cruelty of the world, the boy’s innocence slowly fades away, and his father notices the change of his and his son’s life, which can be noticed through many symbolic scenes that mostly occur during their sojourn at the bunker in which they find food. 

There is a clear scene in the novel that causes the boy’s loss of his innocence, and the father can notice that after the scene. Before they open the bunker which saves their life, the boy is very scared, resulting from the experience he made last time they opened a locked chamber, as they found prisoners of cannibals in there. This shocking finding, in addition to all the other brutal and dehumanizing challenges he and his father experience every day, leads to the boy’s loss of innocence. Before opening the next bunker which saves their life, the man comforts his son. What he realizes then is that something has changed: “But when he bent to see into the boy’s face under the hood of the blanket he very much feared that something was gone that could not be put right again” (McCarthy 136). The boy’s father, who has always valued his son’s innocence and purity, is now scared that these values are lost forever. His observation is supported by the fact that the boy mistrusts every little piece of joy and luck he and his father get to experience after this scene.

“The end approaches, but the apocalypse is long lived”.

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Even after opening the bunker and finding impossible riches saving their life, the boy fears that it is only another dream tempting him to give up. Still finding comfort and order in the idea of heaven and God, the boy prays to the bunker’s owner. After eating, the man washes his son with warm water. This procedure alludes to a baptism, symbolizing the boy’s rebirth as someone who has lost their innocence. Describing his son as “scrawny and filthy and naked” (McCarthy 146), he washes his innocence away. After, there is “steam coming off him like smoke” (McCarthy 147), suggesting that the boy is getting more and more like the world he lives in. The next ritual alluding to a change and to a loss of innocence follows right after: When the man is cutting the boy’s hair, he is separating him from something mothering. Cutting his “golden” hair symbolizes that he is also getting rid of his son’s golden values, his purity and innocence. The boy also seems to notice the change in his character.

When they leave the bunker after a few days, the man asks the boy where the flute that he made for him is. The flute is a symbol for purity as music seems to be absent in their world. Now, after losing his innocence, the boy throws the flute away. In addition, McCarthy foreshadows his loss of innocence through many scenes before entering the bunker in the slave plantation. They drank water, mixed with a grape flavored powder and eat, prior to entering the slave plantation bunker, eat the boy‘s favorite food, which alludes to vine and Jesus’ last supper. Then, when they’re close to starvation, the man finds apples that they eat. The man later describes the bunker filled with food as a “tiny paradise” (McCarthy 150) that they have to leave. This passage highly connects to Adam and Eve, eating apples from the Tree of Life resulting in leaving the Garden of Eden. The man and his son eat the apples, and the son loses his innocence right after. 

Not only the plot, also McCarthy’s language in this section reveals a change. The sentences become monotonous and tedious. Many sentences start with the same word, for example “He” (McCarthy 154), or many independent sentences are all connected with “and” (McCarthy 140). This suggests that, coming with the son’s loss of innocence, his life gets boring and gray too. Where there was some music from a flute and golden hair, there is now nothing of it left anymore. As the boy loses his purity, McCarthy’s language becomes soulless too. 

To summarize, the boy’s experience where he enters a bunker finding prisoners that are kept to be eaten one after another, he loses his innocence. This scene is the most brutal and dehumanizing one in the novel so far, and it changes the boy. He starts to mistrust any following joy in his life: In addition, his dad, who has noticed the growth in his son’s character, laves him and cuts his hair, serving as rituals that show the boy’s loss of innocence. Nevertheless, the man fears that process because his son’s purity and compassion are human traits that are necessary for them to survive, as they are a part of God, a part of the fire they carry. Language-wise, McCarthy emphasizes this loss of positivity and color by using monotonous sentence structures and multiple repetitions of the same linking words in one sentence. The loss of the boy’s innocence can be seen as the turning point of the novel and brings his and his dad one step closer to death.