The Road: The Will to Survive is Carried on From Man to Man

Fire, a symbol and motif for life and the will to survive. In The Road, the fire is referred to many times by the Man and the Boy. At the end of the book we finally get an (implied) explanation of what they both mean by fire, what it represents: survival. The father tells the Boy that he has the fire and must continue to carry it, to live, basically. Fire, which sometimes flickers and then becomes steady once again, perfectly portrays the will to survive through the Man and the Boy.