The Road Sections 381-390 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph)
[The Boy:] You're going to be okay, Papa. You have to.
[The Man:] No I'm not.
[. . .]
[The Boy:] Just take me with you.
[The Man:] I cant.
[The Boy:] Please, Papa.
[The Man:] I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant.
[The Boy:] You said you wouldnt ever leave me.
[The Man:] I know. I'm sorry. You have my whole heart. You always did. You're the best guy. You always were. If I'm not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see. (381.4-381.21)
One of the things that makes the relationship between The Man and The Boy so moving is that the dialogue is convincing. It's not hard to imagine a father saying to his young son, "You're the best guy." Fathers say this cute stuff all the time, even without gangs of cannibals forcing them to be nice to their kids. But something else makes this touching. It's that The Man really means what he says. The Boy does serve as a moral compass for the two road-weary travelers. He is the best guy.
He walked back into the woods and knelt beside his father. He was wrapped in a blanket as the man had promised and the boy didnt uncover him but he sat beside him and he was crying and he couldnt stop. He cried for a long time. I'll talk to you every day, he whispered. And I wont forget. No matter what. Then he rose and turned and walked back out to the road. (388.12)
Earlier in The Road, The Man unceremoniously steals a blanket from a corpse (125.2). The fact that he doesn't think twice about it shows us what sort of world we're in. Here The Boy leaves his dead father wrapped in a blanket. It's a subtle and sweet touch from McCarthy.
Quote 3
He [The Boy] slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff. He sat there a long time weeping and then he got up and walked out through the woods to the road. When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again. (385.1)
We find The Boy's response to his father's death is touching. He remembers and commemorates his father simply by repeating his name "over and over again." This, of course, has a special resonance in the story because none of the characters are named.
Quote 4
The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time. (389.1)
In a way, The Boy continues the type of spirituality present in much of the novel. It goes something like this: There might not be a God, but through love we can find divinity in each other. At least that's how we make sense of all the religious imagery surrounding The Boy. From The Man's perspective, The Boy is the one good thing out there, worthy of his love and protection. It's even possible that The Boy carries a new fire within himself – not only goodness, but the memory of his father.
[The Boy:] Do you remember that little boy, Papa?
[The Man:] Yes. I remember him.
[The Boy:] Do you think that he's all right that little boy?
[The Man:] Oh yes. I think he's all right.
[The Boy:] Do you think he was lost?
[The Man:] No. I dont think he was lost.
[The Boy:] I'm scared that he was lost.
[The Man:] I think he's all right.
[The Boy:] But who will find him if he's lost? Who will find the little boy?
[The Man:] Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again. (384.1-384.10)
This is a pretty complicated exchange. The Man is dying and The Boy knows it. (In fact, The Man will die in the next paragraph.) Faced with his father's death, The Boy remembers the child he saw (or thought he saw) wandering the rubble of a city. Won't that be him soon? The series of questions The Boy asks The Man really have to do with himself. He's not just worrying about the child he saw once, he's worrying about his own imminent abandonment.
The Man's response is quite bold, given the circumstances: Goodness will find The Boy. We're actually a little unsure what The Man means here. Does The Man mean "good" people will find The Boy, or does he mean The Boy will continue to be good and that will sustain him?
Quote 6
[The Veteran:] Where's the man you were with?
[The Boy:] He died.
[. . .]
[The Veteran:] I think you should come with me.
[The Boy:] Are you one of the good guys?
The man pulled his hood back from his face. His hair was long and matted. He looked at the sky. As if there were anything there to be seen. He looked at the boy. Yeah, he said. I'm one of the good guys.
[. . .]
[The Boy:] Are you carrying the fire?
[The Veteran:] Am I what?
[The Boy:] Carrying the fire.
[The Veteran:] You're kind of weirded out, arent you?
[The Boy:] No.
[The Veteran:] Just a little.
[The Boy:] Yeah.
[The Veteran:] That's okay.
[The Boy:] So are you?
[The Veteran:] What, carrying the fire?
[The Boy:] Yes.
[The Veteran:] Yeah, we are.
[The Boy:] Do you have any kids?
[The Veteran:] We do.
[. . .]
[The Boy:] And you didnt eat them.
[The Veteran:] No.
[The Boy:] You dont eat people.
[The Veteran:] No. We dont eat people.
[The Boy:] And I can go with you?
[The Veteran:] Yes. You can.
[The Boy:] Okay then.
[The Veteran:] Okay. (386.2-386.49)
In an unexpected turn of events, someone good (or at least someone who seems good) does appear on the road. It turns out The Man and The Boy are not the only ones.
McCarthy has foreshadowed The Man's death pretty much throughout the whole book, so it's no surprise when he dies. With the destruction of the world and the father's death, McCarthy has written himself into a pretty bleak corner. But we think this is actually a pretty happy ending. Other good people have survived, and The Boy doesn't end up alone.
Quote 7
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. (390.1)
We can't read this passage without tearing up. This is the world human beings lose in The Road – either through their own self-destructiveness or through some random disaster. It's almost as if, though, in this memory of the past there's a pattern for how the world might begin again. McCarthy says: "On their backs were vermiculate [like worms!] patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again."
We know McCarthy says the disaster can't be undone, or made right. But don't you hold out some hope that deep in a glen there's still a brook trout with the pattern of the world on its back? And that somehow the world can be reconstructed from that pattern? It's possible, of course, that we've fallen into the very trap The Man tries hard to avoid: nostalgia for a lost world.
Quote 8
He woke in the darkness, coughing softly. He lay listening. The boy sat by the fire wrapped in a blanket watching him. Drip of water. A fading light. Old dreams encroached upon the waking world. The dripping was in the cave. The light was a candle which the boy bore in a ringstick of beaten copper. The wax spattered on the stones. Tracks of unknown creatures in the mortified loess. In that cold corridor they had reached the point of no return which was measured from the first solely by the light they carried with them. (383.1)
We're unsure about this dream. It's definitely important, though, because a similar one appears in the first paragraph of the novel. (Perhaps it has something to do with traveling through an evil and fallen world?) We do want to point out this little factoid: The Boy is literally carrying the fire here. (OK, it's a candle – but that's good enough, right?) So, as The Man gets closer and closer to death, he dreams (or imagines?) that The Boy holds their candle in the dark cave of the world.
Quote 9
[The Boy:] What about my papa?
[The Veteran:] What about him.
[The Boy:] We cant just leave him here.
[The Veteran:] Yes we can.
[The Boy:] I dont want people to see him.
[The Veteran:] Can I cover him with some leaves?
[The Boy:] The wind will blow them away.
[The Veteran:] Could we cover him with one of the blankets?
[The Boy:] I'll do it. Go on now.
[The Veteran:] Okay. (387.6-387.16)
We find this passage really moving. Earlier in the novel, The Man rips a blanket off a corpse in an abandoned house. It's not a cruel or indecent act; it's just an example of how desperate things have become. Now, at the very end of the novel, The Boy makes sure his father's body is covered, even though it means leaving behind a valuable warm blanket.