Characters:

The man (the father, called Papa) travels the road with his young son. He believes he has been appointed by God to protect the boy, and he does so at all costs, even killing another human being in order to save his son. Unlike his son, the man remains deeply suspicious and even paranoid of other individuals and their intentions, understandably. He is loath to approach other travelers on the road to offer them assistance, while the boy often wishes that he would. The man grows sicker throughout the novel, and his illness is manifested in his persistent cough and bloody spit. At the end of The Road, the man dies next to a stream in a clearing in the woods.

The boy is born into the post-apocalyptic world. He knows nothing about the world before the catastrophe. He travels the road with his father and believes that he and his father are the "good guys" who carry the fire. In various encounters with other travelers on the road, the boy continually displays his faith in humanity and his humbling trust in others. Despite their near brushes with brutal violence and death, the boy consistently pleads with his father to help others in need. After his father's death, the boy is rescued by a family of people who assert that they are also the good guys.

The wife of the man who is the protagonist has already died, and her situation is only described in flashbacks. She chose to avoid rape and murder, which she believed were inevitable, by committing suicide. She used a piece of sharpened obsidian, since the family's pistol only had two bullets. She did not say goodbye to her son, and she killed herself despite the entreaties of her husband not to do so.

the burnt man
The father and the son encounter a man on the road whose footsteps have left tracks in the road tar. The man has been struck by lightning and is heavily burnt. The boy wishes to stop and help