The end of The Road shows a true transformation not only of the characters, but also of the world in which they live. Though everything in this world is physically the same as when the story started, something significantly changes about our perception of it (or at least my perception of it). This new perception paints the same post-apocalyptic world in a slightly warmer and more humane way, thus creating a glimmer of hope for mankind, as we often see at the end of so many other apocalyptic tales.
The introduction of Ely begins this transformation. As the first character in the novel that the man and the boy are able to have a friendly interaction with since the death of the mother (because everyone else they’ve talked to has either wanted to steal their food or kill and eat them), Ely represents something more familiarly human. He is the only one throughout the novel to whom the man was able to let his guard down. Perhaps it was simply because Ely was elderly and therefore harmless. But it also shows the man’s growing trust in his son’s judgment and his growing trust in humanity. It is even more significant that he is the only character in this novel that has been given a name. His name very blatantly comes from a religious background (though usually spelled Eli), which therefore not only connects him to humanity, but also a higher meaning of human life through God and religion. Though Ely himself doesn’t believe in God, he still cannot explain how or why he has survived this long without food. Maybe this is comes from my own desire to have a story with a hopeful side, but I feel that even though Ely is a very brief character in the novel, his presence connotes and foreshadows a view of human life we have not seen thus far in the novel. Whereas we have yet to come up with a reason for life beyond the mere ability to survive, Ely introduces the idea of religion and a higher purpose to this bleak world. This character foreshadows the “goodness” that the boy is essentially destined (as is implied by the father before his death) to find.
This religiosity is more explicitly mentioned at the end after the father dies and the boy is walking with his new “family”. The woman tries to talk to the boy about God several times, but he always says he’d rather talk to his father, whom he talks to everyday. But “The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time” (241). Here, the woman explicitly states the connection between man and god that was only implied by Ely and that I’m sure most people didn’t notice right away. I only noticed it after I read the end- I had to reread the part with Ely. So after reading an entire novel with characters who only had a very bleak idea of what this world may be about, religion and a new family bring beauty and meaning back into the picture, implying that as long as good people exist, meaningful life may prevail.
