Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
What does it mean to live? What does it mean to die?
What do these questions mean in earth become hell?
And likewise, what it does it mean to live or die in our current world?
What choices do we make to live, while we live?
What choices do we make to die? After all, we are all dying.
In many ways the conversations between the man and the boy are a discussion about the ethics of living. Boiled down to their very essence. The choices that the man makes are not the same as the boy would make. And also the choices that the man makes that he does not articulate to the boy--that is, the decision to kill the boy or not.
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Good questions. Clearly you get it, you have the gift. Stated another way, here is one of my favorite scenes in the McCarthy canon , coming very near the end of the Border Trilogy:
"Billy watched the light bring up the shapes of the water standing in the fields beyond the roadway. Where do we go when we die? he said. I don’t know, the man said. Where are we now?"
This exchange occurs as Billy Parham is sitting under a viaduct, reduced in old age to being a street person by the terrible spirit breaking events of his life. In some respects The Road might be the least bleak of McCarthy's novels. Mabye his son in old age gave him some reason for optimism.