Greek mythology, strong motifs, and other topics for consideration!

We all knew that the joyous moment our characters discovered the bunker stocked with food and supplies was not everlasting.  While I was disappointed, the strategic move of abandoning the bunker and pushing forward toward the coast spoke to the identity of Papa.  He knew that they would not be able to stay there forever and that the best chance for salvation was the coast.  Once again, Papa displays his desire for salvation is much more than for survival.

Now, to the good stuff.

What was that business when Papa and the boy were helping the decrepit, old man about him being a god and them being trees?  Shoutout to my myth and folklore teacher, Mr. Brandt, for teaching us the Greek story of Phaethon.  In short, we have this youngster who is the son of the sun-god, Apollo.  In trying to rationalize and redeem himself after losing a race to one of the sons of Zeus, he exclaims his father allows him to steer the sun-chariot.  This comes to that and against all logic and reasoning, Apollo lets his over-confident son, Phaethon, steer the chariot for a day.  The powerful horses of fire that drive the chariot sense the weakness of our youngster Phaethon and decide to take him and Ethiopia, in particular, for quite the ride.  The sun scorches parts of the Earth (interesting how ALL of Earth is scorched in The Road), specifically Ethiopia.  Zeus, the powerful king of the gods cannot have this happen to the world he protects, thus he fires a thunderbolt at the sun chariot, sending a lifeless Phaethon into a river.  During his mourning, Apollo feels as if it was his fault that this mess occurred, and in order to relieve the sisters of Phaethon of their grief, he turns them to poplar trees by the river in which Phaethon's body lies.  The poplar trees served to protect Phaethon for eternity.  So that's my synopsis, but how does it all relate?

As I mentioned in my excellent synopsis (comment below if I errored in any of the details; I must admit is just a mere reconstruction of my memory), one of the most obvious relations between the myth and The Road is the idea that Earth is burned.  Phaethon allows for the sun-chariot to fall too close to the land and thus it gets scorched.  The land Papa and the boy are confronting is as such: barren and ash-ridden.  Whether McCarthy was intending to weigh in on whether God is great (saving Papa and the boy) or evil (responsible for the Earth's destruction), it is reasonable to draw a parallel between the two settings.  The gods, though indirectly, caused the burning of Ethiopia.  Perhaps the God in The Road is responsible for the destruction of land?  Was it a natural disaster?  Though I cannot say for sure, through this allusion to Greek mythology, McCarthy is finally asserting his own opinions into the novel.

Of course, we cannot forget what has led us to this allusion.  "Perhaps he'd turn into a god and they to trees" (163).  In this scenario, we can identify the old man as Apollo, and Papa and the boy as the sisters of Phaethon.  The poplar trees were protecting the spirit/resting place of Phaethon, so what are Papa and the boy protecting.  The two characters, in my opinion, represent the goodness of mankind, a concept that has been lost to the desolate world as gangs resort to cannibalism and murder to survive.  Papa and the boy are "protecting" the goodness found within humanity by preserving the ideals and morals that one would find in the world prior to the cataclysmic event.  They refuse to succumb to cannibalism, they refuse to murder people, and they refuse to rob people.  To them, they are the good guys, "they keep trying.  They don't give up" (137).  This is consistent with what we have obtained from the dialogue between Papa and the boy.  They regard themselves as the good guys, the ones who are "carrying the fire", and state that the bad guys are those who do not. Are Papa and the boy the last moralistic survivors?  It seems the allusion suggests this.

Dreams have been a recurring idea throughout the novel.  In my first post about the characters, I described dreams as a way for Death (a character) to call or to taunt, if you will, the survivors.  The vivid images of yellow leaves and blue skies that used to be a common sight remind the dreamer of the utterly bleak and desperate situation they are in.  In this section of The Road, Papa exclaims that "when your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up" (189).  Dreams as a motif have illuminated the significance of keeping a realistic mindset.  While Papa appears to have hope, he keeps an edge, he expects trouble.  This helps him and his son survive against the environment and the dangerous gangs.  One example of Papa's realistic edge is when they had found the bunker rich with food and supplies.  Papa knew that the supplies would eventually run out, the bunker would eventually become a coffin, and that the bunker would eventually be found by someone else.  Papa's ideas on dreams and their manipulative power help his chances of survival.  On his toes day and night, Papa has come to expect the worst out of people, contrary to the goodness he and his son represent.

Message to all readers who are also on The Road:  Have you noticed the development of the boy?  At the beginning of the novel, it was clear he was scared of most situations, only really thought about death, and was mildly stubborn.  Now, he is reasoning logically about the difference between good and bad, learning from his father, and becoming more explorative.  When the two come upon a deserted train, the boy investigates it a little on his own.  From what I understand about the boy, this is highly uncharacteristic of him.  Perhaps the environment is changing him?  One must consider that the cannibals could have been decent, moral people before their worlds were destroyed.  Maybe this idea that people are forced to change under high-pressure circumstances is a theme of the novel?  Besides becoming a tad more riskier, the father hasn't changed all that much from the first seventy pages.  The difference between the father and the boy's developmental path may answer the question of whether or not the boy is more like his mother than his father.