The Road
discussion
Ambiguity in the ending
Although I didn't like the book very much i saw the ambiguity also. I didn't enjoy the book because of McCarthy's writing style overall. As a standalone novel I thought it was pretty good, but his writing style, to me at least, was very drawn out and just wasn't for me. The ending is most definitely not definitive though, because throughout the entirety of the novel McCarthy stresses that no matter the situation or timing the father and his boy are never safe. I actually liked the ending of the book overall because it was so open ended. Just because the boy was saved by the family at that instance, it doesn't mean that he is really truly safe. This is what is stressed in the whole novel. Safety is an illusion, and any second everything could go wrong, and in every situation the two main characters it does go wrong. What happens if this family that has taken the boy in sees him as a burden? The father certainly saw the old man as a burden and was ready to off him at any moment. The father's animalistic characteristics reflect the intentions of most of the society around them. Anybody in that world wants to survive, and people are willing to take the measures for survival. Nobody in The Road is alive because they were merciful. Every survivor in this novel had destroy some part of their humanity to get to that point, and the family that helped they boy is no different.
The ending is definitely something to reflect on whether you enjoyed the novel or not.
My initial thought immediately after finishing was that they were totally going to eat that kid. AND THEN I saw it as ambiguous. Then I started thinking, what is this book saying if this family did save him? What is it saying if they tricked him? The novel's entire world and perception of human nature changes completely.It hadn't occurred to me that maybe they were saving him with good intentions, but would eventually turn on him. That's an interesting point.
Here's another thought: maybe the kid never really trusted them, but what choice did he have? Maybe he saw it as a choice between certain death and probable death.
He might've thought that. He did grow quite a bit from the beginning but he is stull just a child by the end of the novel. I think McCarthy left the ending open because i honestly don't know if he wanted the story to end for himself. With that open ending he doesn't let the novel die. It still lives in the minds of his readers and in his own mind. He doesn't let us know about anything outside of the world for a reason. The novel isn't really about a post apocalyptic world, it is about a man and his son. They did get through overwhelming odds but in the end the man ended up dying, but he did his best for his son. He taught his son the meaning of humanity in a dark world. He taught his son what is right from wrong in a dreadful world. The only regret the man should've had at his death was that he couldn't see someone who was born into this world develop into an adult with a shred of humanity that has been lost by mostly all. Thinking about this book actually makes me like it more, but that writing style is still bothering me.
I thought the barren, colorless writing style reflected the barren, colorless setting.
Here's the problem with the evil family ending. If they wanted him for food, why the need to trick him? He could have followed the boy into the woods when he went back to put the blanket around his dead father, and then simply killed him. Enslave him? Where are they going to get the food to keep him alive for him to be of any use as a slave? They would be better off just eating him and then we're back at square one, if they were intending to eat him, why give up good blankets and send him away back to his dead father for a last goodbye? Does that sound consistent with evil, desperate cannibals?
of all the folk i know who read The Road half see the boy as lunch come the end, the other half see him as safe. the family would not be evil cannibals, they would be desperate cannibals. desperate cannibals who likely want to get the boy home with minimal struggle
I wouldn't see the family as evil, just desperate and trying to survive above all else. It would be safer and more efficient to trick him. Large predators in the wild, by instinct, always try to make sure the ratio of energy expended in hunting to energy gained from the food is slanted in their favor. It's that same idea.I will grant that my thinking there is probably a stretch, but I still think it would be easier to at least try to lure him first. I might be wrong. Also, it's been years since I read the book, so I don't remember a lot of details.
The boy gave the man his pistol, but the man said no, you better keep it. That answers the question for me.
Ed wrote: "I thought the barren, colorless writing style reflected the barren, colorless setting."Those were my thoughts exactly. I thought the writing style was meant to match the world in which they lived. Personally I thought the book was a good book, nothing great but a decent book. I enjoyed the ambiguity of the ending....I like to sit and wonder about characters rather than having a clear cut idea of what happened. I think it was intended to leave the reader to figure it out.
Stepheny wrote: "Ed wrote: "I thought the barren, colorless writing style reflected the barren, colorless setting."Those were my thoughts exactly. I thought the writing style was meant to match the world in which..."
The story on the whole was good, no question there. It's more of his style than anything that just doesnt click for me. He writes the same way in No Country For Old Men. I think the story had a lot to think about that much is true, and I really do wish that I enjoyed McCarthy's writing style because he has some great pieces of work.
No Country for Old Men
One could argue that a great book reads its reader. I think this is a great book: the ending inquires of us (requires us to work a bit, which is a good thing, a thing that great books do): how do we interpret the end? Why? What does that say about us? What does that say about human nature? In my opinion, the ending stimulates the reader's ideas of morality/immorality, optimism/pessimism, etc. There is no objective answer out there in the firmament: it's a question of sorts hanging out there for the reader to answer.
Ken wrote: "The boy gave the man his pistol, but the man said no, you better keep it. That answers the question for me."I've looked again at the last few pages. Ken is right. no room for real doubt here.
I think McCarthy is asking us to look at the world through the boy's eyes. To have faith and believe in people. Whether the boy lives or dies is really not the point. The point is to have hope, to be optimistic, like a child.And not for one second did I find McCarthy's writing to be barren and colourless. The man chooses his words so carefully, uses them so sparingly, it's like poetry.
Ed wrote: "(This is going to have some spoilers, so if you haven't read it (a.) what are you doing in the discussion for this book? And (b.) go no further.)I was reading through that "omg i hated this book"..."
I don't believe there is any ambiguity. Do you remember the way the man treated the boy? Giving him time to grieve over his father. Letting him keep the pistol. But mostly the fact that he left the blanket over the body, and when the kid came back , without him being supposed to, the blanket was still there. There's not a single person with whom the interaction was anything like it in this hostile world.
Still, I believe that is beside the point. He's carrying the torch. And the book ends with him carrying the torch. A glimpse of hope in a bleak world. Even if he were to die a few minutes later, or of old age. He would, and the human race would disappear in a few generations, according with the description of the state of affairs.
There's still hope in the bleakest of situations.
RK-ique wrote: "Ken wrote: "The boy gave the man his pistol, but the man said no, you better keep it. That answers the question for me."I've looked again at the last few pages. Ken is right. no room for real d..."
Yeah, and leaving the blanket is a pretty good indicator.
Here's the bigger question: are the good guys all doomed? There's no food and no means of producing food. And no end in sight for whatever environmental devastation the world has fallen under. Nothing will grow. The plants are all dead. The animals are all dead. The only things living seem to be other humans surviving on scavenging (the good guys) or cannibalism (the bad guys).So are the good guys--the ones that won't prey on other living human beings--doomed? Their food source is dwindling the fastest. And does that mean the only way the human species survives the world of THE ROAD is if it adopts the predation and cannibalism of the bad guys?
Ed wrote: "(This is going to have some spoilers, so if you haven't read it (a.) what are you doing in the discussion for this book? And (b.) go no further.)I was reading through that "omg i hated this book"..."
Wow, I had not even considered that as a plausible outcome, yet I now think that you are correct in assuming that it was to be left to that consideration. Throughout the book many references were made and I think you are correct. I already liked the book and you just made me love it! Changing my rating right now.
No ambiguity in my mind. So, we've got the man giving up rare and super valuable blankets to put on the dead father, the man lets the boy keep the gun(!), and McCarthy writes in the book himself that they take care of the boy.So yeah, seems pretty clear to me.
Perhaps it is going to require a reread for me.
I never really had any doubt, upon finishing the book, that the "ending" isn't really happening, but rather the Man is imagining/dreaming it as he dies. YMMV.It's made awfully clear throughout the book that a father can't prepare his son for life without him, because he can't affect the world or shape the future into something the son can cope with; literally the only thing he can do is point him in a certain direction and keep him moving.
When the Man comes close to having to shoot the Boy and the Boy hysterically asks if he'll see the Man again once he's dead, the question seems (to the reader in context and to the Man as a character) like it's asked in Urdu, or something. The question doesn't even make any sense. There isn't anything good waiting for them after death, any more than there's anything good in the world they're alive in.
Similarly, the ending is completely foreign to the rest of the narrative. Nothing grows, and there are no fish in the sea. There's no such thing as dogs anymore, at least as pets. And the most basic fact of their lives, since mom killed herself, has been that there are no more families that can make little boys safe.
As the Man is dying, he lets himself for the first time imagine a world where his son will be safe. There's never been any point, until then. It probably says something pretty stark about being a father to a son in today's world, but I don't think the allegory is that ham-fisted. I think more broadly the point is that what you do matters, what you wish for doesn't. And sometimes, there's nothing you can do.
Matt wrote: "It's made awfully clear throughout the book that a father can't prepare his son for life without him, because he can't affect the world or shape the future into something the son can cope with; literally the only thing he can do is point him in a certain direction and keep him moving"I disagree. The man clearly tries to prepare for life without him. This is evident throughout the entire book.
I think it's interesting to think the ending is a dream, but it seems far-fetched imo. The ending says that there used to be fish in the streams and that it could not be made right again. Why would the man imagine a word that could not be made right again as he is dying?
I agree with those that say the ending is pretty unambiguous at least as far as the boy's immediate fate goes. However I do think the ending is still very deliberately ambiguous and very ambiguous at that. There is no mention at any time in the book of anything growing, of any new life at all. No living wild animals are encountered. Is the Earth no longer capable of supporting life? Or is it just America that is completely barren? Was it a nucelar holocaust or biological? None of this information is given to us so we cannot make any realistic judgement on the long term outcome (not good is my guess).
However, the point is that it really doesn't matter. The whole apocalypse event is deliberately not explored because it is not important to the book's message about humanity and love in the face of catastrophe. If you actually look at the hints about the apocalypse event it is really very implausible; the idea that all plants and all wild animals are dead but a significant number of humans are alive is really very very unlikely.
But again, that is not the point, and I'm sure that is why it wasn't examined in detail. What exactly happened is irrelevant; only that something happened and how do father, son and others react to it and how do they react to each other. In effect the beginning and ending of the story are not important, only the middle is of real significance.
I agree.For example there is a hint to that effect when they are on the beach and the man (I think) wonders if there are others sitting on a beach on the other side of the ocean looking back towards them. They don't know, the cannot know, and ultimately it can have no impact on them.
So the long term future of the world is left ambiguous. Will the boy and his new friends survive? Will any life survive?
But as I said, that is not what the book is about. It would almost have been better (though would have caused a far bigger outcry) had he just left them walking down the road together, no destination, no future, just their love.
Mike wrote: "There is no mention at any time in the book of anything growing, of any new life at all. No living wild animals are encountered..."Actually, there is a scene in which they encounter life (other than human or dog). It's the scene in which the father finds mushrooms and they eat them. The mushrooms were growing in the ground. They weren't dead and lifeless like every other plant life encountered. This means that there is some hope for cultivating life after this apocalypse. I can't imagine that mushrooms are the only thing on the entire face of the planet that will grow. I still held out hope for a glimpse of some semblance of civilization through the end of the novel. I think this is what the group the boy ends up with is hoping to ultimately find.
Regarding the chatter on evil and the intentions of the man/woman that take in the boy, I think there is definitely a possibility that they would come to a situation/time when eating the boy sounds like a good idea. One of the major themes in the book is that no one is all good or all bad, and that extreme situations push people into extreme behavior. We think of the father as good, but he does some bad things as well. The only person we don't see evil in is the child, and even he understands that there's a necessity to be mostly selfish. *Tangent - should selfishness be considered an evil, or is it merely a necessity for survival?
You're right, I had forgotten the mushrooms. And I did hold out some hope at the end. Maybe these people have managed to get some stuff growing under glass or something. But ultimately it doesn't really matter, of course, as that wasn't the story.Re selfishness. I agree it can be evil but is not necessarily so. I, for example, consider myself to be very selfish. But it's my time I'm selfish with which I can't exactly accumulate ;)
I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall that the family has a little girl. And the mother says something like "Boy are we ever glad to see you." The boy is actually a savior for the family, because without him, there is no hope for their future, they are at a biological dead end.
Not quite. In conversation with the man:Do you have any kids?
We do.
Do you have a little boy?
We have a little boy and we have a little girl.
How old is he?
He’s about your age. Maybe a little older.
And you didnt eat them.
No.
You dont eat people.
No. We dont eat people.
And I can go with you?
Yes. You can.
Okay then.
Okay.
Then a little farther on:
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.
And of course you need a lot more than one boy and one girl to avoid a biological dead end.
Thanks for the quotes from the book. I wasn't too far off, shows how much this book has stuck in my head, and evidently in so many other people's too.I'm no expert on biology, but you know, a boy and a girl from two different gene pools... that'll at least get things started.
I think McCarthy is riffing on a Genesis-type fantasy at the end.
I thought there was plenty of ambiguity in terms of the author demonstrating a basic competency at forming sentences.
I wondered how they were feeding the dog. But in any case, if they had food for the dog then it was unlikely they'd kill the boy for food.I read the ending as "hopeful".
Feliks wrote: "I thought there was plenty of ambiguity in terms of the author demonstrating a basic competency at forming sentences."Oh please! The style of writing was deliberate and nothing to do with competency (read his other books for more conventional structure). I would have thought even a child could have worked that out.
Now maybe you didn't like the way he constructed the sentences in this book and that's fine; it's a purely subjective thing. But you cannot reasonably make such a sweeping statement about the author's competency.
Well, if you spot Feliks around, take note of his posts and you'll see they are pretty much all like that.
Yes, I have seen them, but it still doesn't stop me from objecting! :)
Ambiguity? Think about your own life and future...do you have the answers? If not then the end of The Road is not ambiguous at all. In the end the family is faced with a future 10 times as complex and far more forbidding then ours. Herein lies the message of The Road.
James wrote: "He stated his opinion clearly and in one sentence. Every one of us could take a lesson from that."No, he stated it with a snarky comment that didn't even have anything to do with the OP's question, so not only was it irrelevant, but it was simply meant to antagonize people who think McCarthy's style is brilliant.
There's often a real divide between what we perceive, and what actually exists; between what we think is happening, and what is factually taking place. And I'd imagine that this divide is all the more broad during the ultimate demise brought on by fatal disease. McCarthy is a writer who indulges deliberately and admittedly in symbolism and meaning. So I don't think we can dismiss the ambiguity by taking the ending literally. But at the same time, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
The fact that the ending, and the book in general, generates this kind of discussion likely indicates that it had an impact on many of those who read it. I'd say that's the finest legacy any author could aspire to for one of his books.
Will wrote: "James wrote: "He stated his opinion clearly and in one sentence. Every one of us could take a lesson from that."No, he stated it with a snarky comment that didn't even have anything to do with th..."
+1
Ed wrote: "I thought the barren, colorless writing style reflected the barren, colorless setting."I like this description. This is one of the first things I noticed about The Road: That the language reflects the setting. I really respect this about the novel.
I finished reading this a few hours before I actually saw the movie so the details surrounding the plot blur a little bit. For example I distinctly recall the new family has a dog in the movie, which would imply (I hope) they haven't gotten to the point of eating people (yet). Regarding the book, I don't remember if such a dog exists. If it does, then I would say that pretty much confirms them as "good guys". If it doesn't, this needn't mean much, but the director's decision to add the dog in the movie would point out the original ending's ambiguity and the need to clear it up.So as to answer your question... I should re-read the ending.
I never thought that the man was trying to trick the boy and lure him away. Either way I don't think it makes a difference to the tone of the book. My reading of the it would be that because life on the planet is facing extinction everything the father does to protect his son is futile. In the end, if the man takes the boy into his own family they will still starve to death, if he doesn't the boy will be cannibalised. Maybe the point of the book is to be able to look at our existence in the broader context (extinction is the norm after all) and not flinch away from the unsettling feelings that arise from that.
(I didn't get to read all the answers above so forgive me if I'm repeating a point someone else has already raised)
I thought that the boy with his new found family continued to carry the torch into an unknown future for himself and the rest of humanity. So ambiguous in a way that the world they live in could take the family in any direction.
I'll never understand adult readers who want nothing other than a "they lived happily ever after" ending.
I did not think of the guy taking away the boy in a bad way at all, this is the first time I've read anything of the like that put that idea into my head. I guess it's all up to interpretation. I automatically assume they were good people who were taking the boy under their wing.
*Disclaimer: This comment contains spoilers, blah blah blah... why are you even on a discussion forum if you haven't read the book?!*The end of the novel is very ambiguous; to me it is unclear what happens. Does the boy die? Does he live, with his new family? For me personally, it was more of a happy hopeful ending, rather than a depressing one. McCarthy says that the breath of God passes "from man to man through all of time" - the idea of new life, passing from man to man.
THE TROUT!!!
And so far, throughout this WHOLE discussion, there's been no mention of the trout. At the very end of the novel: "Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains". You could see this as another sign of new life, new hope for the boy, as he carries on his journey.
But you could look at the bit about the trout in a less positive way. McCarthy talks about the trout in past tense: "Once there were brook trout... They smelled of moss...where they lived... Of a thing which could not be put back. Not made right again" So you say that McCarthy is implying that nothing will ever go back to the way it was, before the apocalypse happened. You could say that the boy is destined for a life of disaster, of pain, and inevitably of premature death. McCarthy also describes the trouts' backs, with "vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming". The trout was a symbol for the world in "its becoming", but it cannot be "made right".
From this, McCarthy could be giving a moral message, to his readers, that it was humans that made this world, changed it, reshaped it and ... destroyed it. Humans caused the apocalypse. We tore the world apart, but we cannot "put" it "back" together again. McCarthy could be reaching out to his readers; urging them to not make the same mistakes that the characters in this fictional apocalypse did. Before it's too late.
I believe he survived and stayed with the family as an additional member not as a lunch to be consumed.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.
And agree. The trout is a sign of hope.
I just reread The Road for the second time, and the ending isn't ambiguous at all. The woman actually embraces him and welcomes him into the family. I am not sure how that is ambiguous, unless a later edition added that part, but I felt certain it existed in my first reading.And I agree that the streams and trout are clear indications of hopefulness. As there was nothing rose-colored about this novel, the boys ability to find the good guys doesn't mean there is a happy ending. It just means that there are good guys and he found relief at least for the moment.
Aparna wrote: "But you could look at the bit about the trout in a less positive way. McCarthy talks about the trout in past tense: "Once there were brook trout... "I had initially thought that this thread was going to be about the trout paragraph, as it is worded somewhat ambiguously.
The most likely interpretation is as a refrain: "Once there were brook trout. Here is my story of growth and loss and the end of the world... Once there were brook trout." This is bleak, though satisfying.
Given the style in which the book was written, however, the sentence also works as a piece of narrative: "...And so my father died. I joined the family and we left the road, travelling through the mountains. Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. We expect to see more as we head south." This is hopeful, and makes the early occurrence of the "Once there were brook trout" seem prophetic.
I think it is pretty clear that the first interpretation is what was intended. When I reached the ending of the novel, though, I read the trout paragraph as a continuation of the narrative (i.e. what events occur after the boy joins the family), and the second interpretation occurred to me before I recognized the paragraph as a repetition from earlier in the book.
The previous events of the ending (the boy joining the family) seem pretty unambiguous.
The father and son encountered at least one harmless person on the road (the old man) and witnessed many likely-harmless people (the basement captives, the woman and girl) being victimized by road-dwellers.
This means there are 'good' (or at least less-bad) people out there, but the father is too suspicious of others to find this out. Once he dies, the 'good' people approach the boy and raise him with their own children. If they were going to eat the boy, they would have eaten the father -- instead of letting the meat go to waste.
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I was reading through that "omg i hated this book" thread, and I didn't get very far because it is long as heck. One thing I kept seeing, however, was people complaining that McCarthy didn't have the gonads to let the kid die in the end. The defenders responded that killing him off would make the story bleak and nihilistic, and that the whole point of the book was to show how humanity prevails in the relationship between the boy and his dad, that in the end there's always a kernel of human goodness. Or something like that.
Now here's my question. When you say that the boy didn't die, are you sure about that? Maybe I grossly misread it, but one of the key things I took away was that it ended with two equally possible, but polar opposite outcomes. Either this new family takes him in as one of their own and he is saved (which everyone on that other thread seems to assume), or the man was tricking him so his family could enslave/eat him. I found the ending to be a total mindfuck (in a good way). Apparently the prevailing interpretation is that The Road had a tidy ending, or at least an optimistic one. Anyone else think it was ambiguous?