The Road Section 3 q 3

One might argue that in The Road, memory and narration create realities, whether or not these memories or narrations are accurate. Storytelling and naming, accordingly, are forms of authenticity and power, lending reality to those objects or concepts which are described or named. "Make a list. Recite a litany. Remember" (27).

In one way, this theme is exemplified by the man's dreams and memories of his life before the destruction of civilization. Though the man attempts to reject his dreams as death's lure away from the sobering reality of his impending end, these dreams in some way validate the existence of his previous life, the existences of "things no longer known in the world.... He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins.... What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not" (111). This passage also demonstrates the significance of memory for a person; the mind remembers and thus validates phenomena which may no longer exist. Failing to remember and to name these phenomena render them forever lost.