The Road

How did the father and his son change throughout the story?

Who changed the most in "The Road"?

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I guess I have said it before but I'll say it again, I love this story. It is difficult to call both father and son dynamic characters. If there is change in their personalities, it is subtle. I think, if anything, their love for each other grows. It grows amidst the decay of a diseased planet; it is a beautiful irony. The father might have had hope for something better, somewhere near the ocean. The tone of McCarthy’s prose, however, leads me to think that the father merely had hope of loving his child for another day. There is a sense of fatalism in him; he struggles against a parent's unwavering belief that there is always hope for their child. In the end the father dies reassured only that his child will live another day. The boy, learns a few more survival skills, but really only learns that he loves his father even more. He sees what humanity has become and chooses to live another day because of the possibility of something better. I wish I could say there was more of a change but I don't think personal change was McCarthy’s point in the novel. The Road simply allows us to submerge in the quiet unconditional love of these two characters amidst the living hell of an apocalypse.