"The Road" to Nowhere

Its about that time again where I reach the end of a novel. I must say that The Road, like no other book in quite a while, actually touched me. The novel was not like any other that I have read in quite a while because it raise profoundly philosophical questions in a compelling and contemporary way and offered themes and ideas that would be worthy of debate. A few of these themes being the issue of morality and the symbolism behind fire.
         The issue of morality gets raised a lot in The Road to the point where one could say that it is a major theme. The novel sets to question preconceived notions of morality and in its own way questions the morality of humans. One of the very first examples can be found on pages 49-50. Basically The Man and The Boy happen upon another survivor on the road. The problem lies in the fact that the traveler has been severely burned, possibly by lightning strike and is sooner or later going to die. The Man realizes this inevitability and opts not to help the traveler at all, however the Boy being the kid that he is questions his fathers decision and wants to honestly help the man. There lies the question, what would you do in that situation? As an adult, because your experiences, you tend to grow and see the world for what it really is. Any adult would have known that the man was far beyond any help that the world in which they lived could give, but when you are a child it is different. It may be due to the fact that the world, or society as a whole feeds its general notions of what is and what is not moral, but fails to point out that morality is based on situation. Because of this sort of Hypnopedic teaching of what is moral, children are often left with misconceived views of reality and the truth it entails.