Doomsday

So far, after reading the first 150 pages of The Road, I find that the most striking aspect of the story was this one line — “are we still the good guys?” One of the elements of Apocalypse we frequently discuss in class is the concept of the Good “us” versus the Bad “them.” Traditionally, the Bad “them” is to be punished and suffer the wrath of God (or some other divine power) with the coming of the end of the world and the Good “us” will survive to see New Jerusalem. It is this one belief, that this father and son are the good guys who “carry the fire” that give them any will to go on in a dead, soot-covered, post-Apocalyptic world. The son’s constant question, “are we still the good guys?” is very important after seeing the pair abandon a dying man and a lost young boy to their own devices. It is obvious that in a world where most humans did not survive, there may have been some major changes in morality.

In this story, everyone who survived is living the same horrible life, and there seems to be no real  reason to believe that there hope. The father seems to safely guard the dream that the American South is their New Jerusalem but I have a feeling (from what I have heard about the book before reading it) that this is an empty hope and that they will reach the South only to find everything decimated. In this manner, The Road resembles “On the Beach” more than The Book of Revelation. I almost believe that the most rational thing to have done in this circumstance was to commit suicide– just as the boy’s mother and everyone in “On the Beach” had done. So, this makes me wonder about suicide in times of extreme crisis. Is there a time when suicide may be the best thing? Is the father putting his son through unnecessary suffering by insisting that they keep going on the Road? Is this kind of survival instinct something that should actually be admired, or is it bordering on delusional? Maybe I will be proven wrong later in the book, but for now, I have no hope for these characters.