Discussion Questions - The Road (optional)

WARNING: DO NOT READ TILL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE BOOK

1. Why do you think McCarthy wrote The Road?
   
   
2. Why did the father choose to survive and not the mother? What did he see that she could not?
   
   
3. What do you think the coast represents (physically and literally)? Why?
   
   
4. One man they meet on the road says "There is no God and we are his prophets." What does he mean by this?
   
   
5. What are the key moments that help push the father to keep striving on?
   
   
6. When does the boy become a man? What does he see that his father can’t?
   
   
7. What do you think McCarthy is saying about humanity in The Road?
   
   
8. What would you do in a world like this? Would it change your beliefs? What would you hope in?
   
   
9. What do you think of the end of The Road? After such a fate, could things be "put back again?" Could they be "made right?"
   
   
10. What do you think McCarthy is thinking of when he speaks of "the deep glens where all things are older than man and hum of mystery?" What does it make you think of?
    
    
11. Rate The Road on a scale of 1 to 5.