The Loss of a Wooden Flute

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, we follow a young boy and his father as they travel across a post-apocalyptic United States in search of a resting place. Along their journey, the two encounter various obstacles. Whether it be; cannibals, famine, exhaustion, or any other degrading circumstance, the two always manage to hold onto hope, or what they call the fire. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, we follow a young boy and his father as they travel across a post-apocalyptic United States in search of a resting place. Along their journey, the two encounter various obstacles. Whether it be; cannibals, famine, exhaustion, or any other degrading circumstance, the two always manage to hold onto hope, or what they call the fire. Although it may seem that the father and his actions spare the young boy from the trauma inducing world, it becomes obvious that the boy loses something within him.

The first time this is noticed, is when the two of them, starving, dehydrated, and meek, stumble across a deserted home with seemingly nothing useful inside. As they both are preparing for death, the father notices something different with the boy. Throughout the story the boy had always been a ray of sunshine for the man, “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 father had always feared something with the boy would leave him, and it would not come back. Initially this was just a fear, but now it is reality. This ‘something,’ thuat the father feared, is the boy’s innocence. This holds the theme true with the rest of the novel, as the boy continues to speak towards the unforgiving wave of death that surrounds him. The father noticing this has significance however, as the entire novel he has proven himself to be observational and accurate. The way that the father diagnoses the boy through a look at his face, gives reason to believe that the loss the boy faces is intangible, however we later learn it is both tangible, and intangible.

Innocence is not the only thing the boy loses. Infact, earlier the two lost their entire cart full of supplies and rations. Despite this, they still were able to hold onto valuable possessions. However, they later find out that the boy had intentionally given up something important to him. As the two begin to journey on the road, the boy seems docile which prompts the father to ask, “What happened to your flute?” (159).

 The boy, not wanting to lie to his father, responds, “I threw it away,” (159). In this quote, the brief explanation of how he lost the flute, and the lack of emotional attachment he expresses, continues to symbolize his loss of innocence. Furthermore, the boy throwing away the flute, rather than losing it, suggests that it was an impactful decision made by him, showing his maturity and dissociation from necessity and enjoyment. The flute was made by his father, and was one of, if not the only source of music and enjoyment the two had. Throwing it away shows that he has moved on from such childish toy’s, and similarly to his father, only keeps what is needed to survive. The boy’s loss of innocence marks an impactful change for The Road, as it takes away the only character who still had something to protect. The boy now is turning into a man and with the transformations comes all of the complexity of adult lives, and survival. His loss of innocence proves to the father that he could not isolate his child from the post apocalyptic world they live in, and marks a developmental change for the boy which will follow him for the remainder of his life.