McCarthy loves to throw out a question of ethics and leave the reader to decipher for himself beyond the character to go inside one’s own head. He weaves it throughout this book as well, never letting us forget that we must go through the pages just as the stages of this journey with the big one hanging over us: If it comes down to it, will he kill his son?
Backtracking a bit, we get the picture clearly of what the man has taught his son because of the kind of world they live in:
Don’t be afraid, he said. If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? Shh. No crying. do you hear me? You know how to do it. You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quick and hard. Do you understand? Stop crying. Do you understand? (p. 95)
But the man finds that the boy is terrified, too terrified to trust to do what he’s been told.
Even as, later on, when they stumble into a well-stocked underground shelter, we already know that the danger hasn’t gone away; that the reality of the plan and the possibility of the need to kill themselves will not go away. Maybe, we keep hoping, maybe the whole world isn’t like this. But we know that hope is just that, hope.
So when does the love between them that has managed to overcome what I believe–and likely McCarthy as well–to be man’s instinct for personal survival over caring for others become an act of killing for the sake of love? What is the transitional thought process? It’s got to be more than not wanting someone you love to suffer. It’s a total reversal of love’s intent.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology