The Road (Cormac McCarthy) [SPOILERS]

Cafe Society
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So, I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I enjoyed immensely, if indeed ‘enjoy’ is the right word for the appreciation of such a bleak, yet poetic work.

However, I’ve got one major problem, and that’s the ending (I’m putting it in spoiler tags just in case, but feel free to not continue the practise – anybody who reads past the OP is on his own):

[SPOILER]So, the man eventually succumbs to his illness, as was foreshadowed throughout the book. However, he doesn’t follow up on his original vow to not leave the boy alone in this post-apocalyptic world, instead leaving him, essentially, to fend for himself.

Then, after three days of grieving, a man – who’s apparently been tracking the father/son pair – pops out basically of nowhere, takes the boy with him, and integrates him into his family.

While I get that this is, at least in part, a sort of vindication for the father’s relentless determination to stay alive and carry on, carry the fire, this ending seems to me to be in stark contrast with the overall atmosphere of the book, where random acts of kindness (by the boy) generally go ungratified – the half-starved man they feed at one point doesn’t give them any quest-critical items to be pulled out at a convenient time as I half feared – and everything’s a struggle, and a seemingly pointless one at that.

Thus, the ending, in addition to appearing rather rushed, left me hanging a bit – I don’t want to say that I’d preferred a bleaker ending, though I half expected it, but to just have the man appear and save the boy seems a bit odd, to me. So I feel somewhat like I missed something, since the book is, otherwise, meticulously crafted, perhaps some foreshadowing, perhaps a justification for hope in the end – to me, there seemed nothing of that sort to be present.

I’m not explaining myself too well, I’m afraid. It just seemed so random, and in its randomness weakens its own point – that there is a reason to keep going. The boy might just as well have died if not for the coincidence of having been followed by fellow ‘good ones’.[/SPOILER]

So, what do you say? Am I missing something? How do you interpret that ending?

Oh and, for those of you that occasionally live behind the moon a bit like myself, it’s coming to theatres late this fall. Directed by John Hillcoat, and with a soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, we’ll see if it’ll be able to compete with No Country for Old Men…

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I thought it was a great book, and likewise had trouble grasping the ending.

I think the key is to figure out the symbolism attached to the boy in the story. I’m not usually very good at doing this, but it seemed clear even to me that there was a lot of religious and spiritual iconography woven into his character. I think McCarthy intends the boy to be some sort of saviour, son of Man figure, which can be used to explain his miraculous discovery by the kindly man at the end, along with the closing allegory that talks about nature and growth (IIRC, don’t have the book to hand).
Just doing a search online, and there’s quite a bit of discussion on the episode of the old man Ely that you refer to in the OP. He is the only named character in the book, apparently, and comparisons are being drawn with the prophet Elijah in the old testament. I don’t know if there is anything in this interpretation, but it’s definitely a pivotal moment in the book for defining the father and boy.

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I’m curious to see how this will be dealt with in the upcoming film version.

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I thought the point of having the boy encounter the adults who take him in was to prove that the boy and his father were not the only good people still alive, despite the undertone that suggested the father thought it was so. As the novel goes on we are only exposed to the ruthless or the helpless up until then, so ending with another set of “good” characters is meant to give hope that humanity isn’t beyond redemption after all - at least not as a whole - in spite of how it must seem to someone trying to suvive then.

That’s what I took away from the ending, anyway.

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Not very in-depth here, but I recall reading that McCarthy wrote “The Road” after the birth of his young son. Old/dying father, young son. I’d say this is why “The Road” ends the way it does. As to additional symbolism-I really can’t say, but I’d imagine that McCarthy adopted it because he knew going in that the man would die (before the boy could fend for himself) and the boy would live on-in all likelihood the situation to be played out by himself and his son.
*
::Forrest Gump:: Sorry I ruined your [del]Black Panther Party[/del] literary analysis party.::/FG::*…but after hearing that little piece of information, it’s hard for me to disengage it from the story.

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I believe **Incensed **is right. Though I do have an interpretatation of the scene: it’s a generational shift. The Man passes away and with him the notion that everything is evil and corrupted. The Boy is the shining beacon for a new human race that has known compassion.

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I’d been thinking along those lines (and the additional information by Incensed makes something similar seem likely), but if the boy actually represents a new human race, some kind of an incorruptible fresh start (and it’s certainly true that his morals and ethics are shown to be surprisingly unwavering), then what, exactly, is the role of his father? He doesn’t obviously seem part of whatever it was that left the earth a charred wasteland, as you’d perhaps naively expect in such an interpretation; rather, he serves as a protector to the boy, even though he can ultimately not fulfil this purpose. Is that meant to imply that mankind, essentially, has the potential to be good, and is merely corrupted by outside forces (e.g. those in power, who are presumably responsible for the destruction), and once those self-destruct, this inherent goodness can (re-)surface?

And I can’t recall right now, did the boy, in the end, still have the shopping cart?

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I just finished this, and I was blown away by the imagery. I’m not one to analyze much - I just take a story to be a story, usually - but I like elfkin477’s interpretation. Even though Papa was road-weary and losing hope, his message that there are other “good people” out there turned out to be true, and gave the boy trust and respect for his father’s dream. Does that make sense?

Oh, and no he does not have the cart at the end. They found a backpack and a small suitcase, and abandoned the cart.