Father and Son

In The Road the element of parent-child relationship is isolated and becomes a major theme of the book. The Father and Son are in this drastic situation where they are completely reliant on each other. They're both reliant on each other to keep them alive. The situation is extremely horrible and stressful and would wear on any relationship. The Son is so young and knows so much about the world, but at the same time so little. The Father is trying to shelter his son and keep his life as normal as possible, and in doing so doesn't tell him whole truths, which the boy picks up on immediately. Things like this seem to be pushing them apart. I think the Son senses this a lot, where as the Father doesn't as much. The Son is growing up in this ridiculously horrible situation and if he lives long enough to understand just how much his Father did for him he will be grateful. However, now it feels like there's this growing resentment towards his Father. In his eyes his Father is the one who makes them constantly travel and move from place to place. There's no way for the Son to completely understand what's going on. Despite this there is an undeniable amount of love between them, but it seems that it's just love. They love each other so much and are so focused on survival that they don't seem to actually like each other, or enjoy the others company. But then again can you really enjoy someone when you're trying so desperately to survive?


I'm definitely not a parenting expert and I won't pretend to be. I'm lucky enough to have great parents, but frankly I find parent-child relationships weird and hard to define. Every parental relationship is different across the board. I'm also not a kid person, which may have something to do with it.

Thanks for reading.
Gianna