The end of The Road

   So I kind of liked the ending of the book but at the same time I didn't. The parts I liked was the symbolism and meaning put into those last few pages. It shows how the boy has changed from who he was a the beginning of the book. He's become more of his own person, with his own interpretations of the world and his own will to survive. I also like how the boy and the man seem to switch roles at the end. All along the man has been completely taking care of the boy who he sees as a god-like creature whom he must protect with his life, but at the end of the book, with the man's disease finally taking hold, the boy assumes the role of care giver, if only for a short time. The boy then holds vigil and tries to protect him when he hears someone, the veteran, approaching. Later the boy reveals that he'd rather talk to his father than talk to God, so it seems that now it is the boy who reveres his father as a god like creature, one who took car of him and showed him how to keep the will to live. I also notice that after the father's death, the book doesn't reveal to the boy as 'the boy' anymore, but instead as 'He', where once the man was referred to as 'He.' This is another way in which McCarthy hints at their role reversal.

   What I didn't like about the ending is mostly my own personal feelings. I just thought it was a little to coincidental that so soon after his father's death, the boy would find 'good people' to be his new family. I just find it hard to accept. I feel it was supposed to be symbolic of a hopeful future, but I still think it was to much. I would have preferred the boy going out on his own, seeing how he had grown up so much during the journey's course. It still would've been hopeful because of his good nature. The reader would feel hope for the future thinking that there is one good person who is making it in this devastated world and  is still managing to keep such altruistic morals and if there is one, then there must surely be others out there.