I am Legend and The Road

        Both I Am Legend and The Road are heroic stories of survival and preservation of goodness against odds in desolate, apocalyptic worlds.  In The Road, the boy often affirms that he and his father are carrying the fire.  I perceive this idea to symbolize that they are upholding moral principles and surviving despite the temptation to devolve to the brutality of human nature.  In The Lord of the Flies, for instance, the fire is a beacon for light, hope, and civilization, that which brings the boys back to a state of logical reflection -- the idea of being rescued -- rather than the barbarity of their hunting games and killing each other out of desperation.  This is also present in I Am Legend, in Dr. Robert Neville's determination to find a cure, put an end to the epidemic, and restore moral society.  He is also committed to survival, like the protagonists in The Road.  There are many similarities evident between Neville and the father of The Road.  They are alike in their selflessness -- Neville staying in the city of greatest destruction, "Ground Zero," as he calls it, to save the world, and the man sacrificing everything for his boy.  They are different in that Neville sacrifices generally for societal welfare, although he also sacrifices for his equivalent of the son in The Road -- his dog, Sam, whereas the father has no hope of saving the world because it appears to be generally decimated (destroyed more externally than in the film), and therefore sacrifices for his son.  Both stories display ideas of isolation and loss of hope.  They demonstrate the idea that hope is closely connected to solidarity, to having people to wallow with, to love, to mope with, to cry for, and to die for.  Neville and the father similarly draw strength from their companions, giving them motivation to keep their fight for goodness alive.  Solidarity is therefore also closely connected to faith, as faith is a synonym to hope, and the presence of people therefore gives us the idea of a god.  God resembles hope, and when the world is decimated, with no people to love, the world is godless -- as Neville asserts to Anna, "There is no God."  This idea is evident in The Road, with McCarthy generally describing the world in which the father and son live to be dark, barren, and godless.  But the father does say, also, that his son could only be proof of God.  He is the world to him.  He is his hope, his motivation.  This is why Neville is in misery when Sam dies; he is his only source of hope and love -- his only proof of God, so to speak.