The importance of 'the road' in the novel

• The road represents adventure, as they come across many obstacles along their journey. It includes fights, strange creatures, monsters, new places and the need to camp and sleep along the side of the road. A sense of adventure and overcoming things is given by them never leaving the road and facing what is thrown at them.
• It also symbolises life itself, the fact that they cannot get off the road because they are still alive. There is only one destination as it could be seen as their personal road, there is only one route which they have chosen so they are unable to leave the road and mentally are constantly travelling it throughout their lives. Their unchangable path is solely for them as the 'good guys'.
• Roads typically have no ending, they connect to other roads which presents the idea of hope for the boy at the end of the novel. This suggests there is hope left for humanity as the boy continues travelling along his metaphorical 'road', his life, to find a better place.
• The man leaves the wife's photo on the road, symbolically ending her own journey so he is able to get on with his. He leaves his past life behind them where they have travelled on the road to get on with his new life because the past is no longer relevant and dwelling on it will do them no good.
• The road could also represent the man's mental state throughout the novel, as it is desolate and full of danger, much like the man's loneliness and pessimism which follows them throughout the book.
• Abandoning the shopping cart shows the man giving up material possessions and accepting he has to revert back to simpler ways of living, he leaves a lot of things on the road he no longer wishes to bring on his new journey because the road is a reminder of where they have come from.