Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, the author sets up the inevitable demise of the man to show how growing up is not easy but there are situations and times where instead of being the one getting taken cared of one instead becomes the person taking care of the other.
Death is a human flaw and everybody in this harsh reality is subject to the flaw however in the post apocalyptic world in the boy lived in he had to grow and was show as the man and the boy were in the forest and the boy innocent as he was saw another living person and wanted to help him, he asks "Can we help him papa. No we can't help him there is nothing to be done for him."(McCarthy 51) The reader can see that innocence exists and although young the boy begins to see the lessons behind the cruel world around him, he only begins to learn as the man faces the inevitable death. Progressing in the novel the man continues to get sicker and sicker while the child continues to learn about the ways to survive and mature. The man leads in by saying that " he found everything he led them down the stairs and picked up the bottle and said Can you see? Can you see.?....does" (McCarthy 147). Through the finding of the food one can interpret how the author establishes a sort of hopeful place where the have food and clean water, however that only served as a light to the shade of darkness that was coming the the man. Lastly, the boy finally grows up and the overall lesson was learned about how growing up isn't about how one wants to it is based on how life puts down the lemons, as shown when the boy left his dead father and walked" down the road, he saw someone coming and just stood there. Pistol in hand."(McCarthy 301) one can learn through here that the human mindset changes when the loss of someone occurs and the boy as young as he was grew up on the day his father died and put the boy alone realizing that the people he was going to stand up to actually help him which he never learned to take.
Everyone dies in the end and although it is an inevitability children lean from them both from mistakes and the good things that the parents do. Growing up is not the easy when faced with hard ships however it is up to one to overcome these hardships in order to come out on top.
