On page 15 of The Road, the father
discards all of his former life's identification:
He'd carried his billfold about till it wore a
cornershaped hole in his trousers. Then one day he sat by the roadside and took it out
and went through the contents. Some money, credit cards. His driver's license. A picture
of his wife. He spread everything out on the blacktop. Like gaming cards. He pitched the
sweatblackened piece of leather into the woods and sat holding the
photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and
they went on.
In the
post-apocalyptic world, all forms of money, credit, identification, and memories are
worthless. Cannibals can't be bribed. Road warriors don't take credit. Even one's
spouse is a figment of the past. All that matters is the boy, survival, and carrying
the fire.
Also, the mother committed suicide. She gave up
on the family. She extinguished her fire. She refused to walk the road. Her
photograph is a haunting memory of the father's worst nightmare: that he too will have
to use the two bullets in the gun to kill himself and his son. Why carry around that
reminder? Her photograph is a constant reminder of self-annihilation. It is best
discarded with the other worthless relics of the past.
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