A Mercy By Toni Morrison And The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

In the short stories A Rose for Emily and The Story of an Hour, Emily Grierson and Louise Mallard are both similar women, in similar time periods but they both are in entirely different situations. This essay will take these two specific characters and compare and contrast them in multiple, detailed ways.

Faith in a "higher power" is often used as a crutch by many in times of struggle. However, when that crutch is removed, the hardships that need to be overcome seem to increase as hope diminishes. This is true

After experiencing life similar to hell on earth for nearly a year very few people could truthfully say that their faith is unscathed. Even in the modern world, people who have not been starved and pushed to work beyond their limits find themselves questioning whether or not there is a god, and if he is a just one. Throughout Night, a Holocaust memoir, it is shown that faith does not only refer to religion, but also the belief that humanity is sympathetic and warm-hearted. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, demonstrates how he loses his faith and watches those around him lose their confidence in God, and each other. Wiesel shares his thoughts with the readers writing how from a very young age he believed profoundly yet within a few months Wiesel finds himself questioning “Where is God?” (61). Loss of faith only propels Wiesel to find the strength within himself to persevere until his day of liberation.

In each novel of his personal literary journey, Cormac McCarthy examines death and God in different ways. Edwin T. Arnold, who wrote his essay “Blood and Grace: The Fiction of Cormac McCarthy” before The Road, examines how “McCarthy’s protagonists are most often those who, in their travels, are bereft of the voice of God and yet yearn to hear him speak” (14). In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the father explicitly describes his son as god; however, by juxtaposing the father and the son and examining their divine resemblances, it is not the boy but the man who embodies God, supporting Ely’s claim that this post-apocalyptic world is too harsh for God to exist.

Faith is a hard thing to master, and sometimes obtaining it is even harder. Many of the character in this novel have different opinion on whether the usage of faith is relevant in this apocalyptic world. The difference between good and evil is a relevant idea in the road, everyone that we come in contact with we are always pose with that one question, “are you one of the good guys?”. For There to be a good guy there has to be a “bad guy”. To separate the “good guys” from everyone else. This question that is posed leads to many different aspects of a person; trust, will, and belief. In Cormac McCarthy Novel, The Road, McCarthy uses Character flashbacks, motif, and religious allusion to show the separation between good and evil.

Throughout his book, Tillich references faith as an ultimate concern to emphasize the importance of faith in the personality of individuals. Furthermore, Tillich believes faith is a vital part of human nature and that even the rejection of faith is, in itself, an act of faith. This displays Tillich’s understanding that faith will never disappear from society because it is a piece of the puzzle in what makes up humanity (Tillich).

Miriam Toews’ novel, A Complicated Kindness, explores the aspects of one’s interpretation of faith, their reintegration into society and self-improvement. These elements are explored through Natasha Nickel’s formulation of her newfound faith, a step in which she soaks knowledge, questions what has been learned, and then incorporates the changes into her lifestyle. Through this critical thinking process, Tash becomes the most logical follower of faith in the community.

A comparative literary study of the effect of mental illness on the central characters is the semi-autobiographical novels The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Comparing two women trying to deal with mental illness and are trying to cope with the mental pressures they put on themselves and by other people. Although the differences between these two novels are The Bell Jar shows Esther’s life before she descends into mental illness whereas Susanna’s story is about her time in a mental institution and experiencing other patients who are in similar situations.

In his novel The Road Cormac McCarthy uses a post-apocalyptic setting to help broaden the debate over moral good and evil. Not only do the main characters in his novel display either good or evil in their actions, but so do the people they encounter on their journey. These encounters are shaped by the moral decisions each individual makes. In this novel’s setting it is hard to define good and evil, but the choices made can still be applied to a non-apocalyptic world. McCarthy uses the experiences of the main characters to demonstrate that no matter what the scenario good will overcome evil.

“The Road” depicts a solemn and deteriorating environment that can no longer provide the fundamentals to a society due to the nuclear disaster. The sudden depletion of the resources within their environment made it difficult for the father and the son to find sustenance. They were constantly traveling towards the South looking for safe places to situate themselves because the father knew that they would not be able to survive the nuclear winter. The genre of the novel is post-apocalyptic science fiction because it revolves around a dismantling society. Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” depicts how environmental destruction finally gave sense for people to value the world and what it had to offer.

The novels, “Beloved” written by Toni Morrison and “The Color Purple” written by Alice Walker both represent two women, the protagonist of both books, are able to accept their past and be able to find fulfillment and move on with their lives to be something better than were they were left off. Comparing acts of love and the moral support from the community to be the strong independent women they originally are. Toni Morrison and Alice Walker represent these two women, Celie and Sethe, in ways that they have the potential to help others but, when it comes to themselves they back down, which is what is not realized by these women.

What makes Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road stick out from most dystopian works is that The Road takes place not before or during but after the end. The novel follows a man and his son as they survive the dangers of what once was the United States after an unspecified calamitous event. There is not much left of the world: no food, no animals, and no hope. Many readers will ponder how someone could still be motivated to keep moving forward under such circumstances. If we were living in the same conditions as the man and the boy, this question might seem more imperative. But arguably it is a question that can be applied to today: what, if anything, makes human life valuable or worthwhile? Through the dialogue between the characters, the novel provides two conflicting arguments that serve as potential answers for this question. The first argument is hope, which is associated with the Christian religion, while the other argument is futility, which has a nihilistic outlook of the ravaged world. This paper will examine the Christian imagery and nihilistic arguments contained in the novel and how the moral systems of the two conflict. While at first The Road might present itself as a powerful challenge to both Christian and nihilistic views of the world, in the end, the novel never explicitly reject either worldview.

In a postmodern world it is worth contemplating in what we can put our faith. Does culture, religion, or God merit our trust? Or is this a world of mechanical and biological evolutionary processes void of any meaning and purpose? The Sunset Limited, “a novel in dramatic form,” by Cormac McCarthy, is a dialogue between two persons who approach each other from opposite worlds to answer these questions. Black, a born-again believer and ex-con, and White, a nihilistic college professor, attempt to determine whether belief in God is viable in this world and if life is worth living. Despite Black’s efforts to convince him otherwise, White remains a Depressed Self who denies God’s existence, affirms his view of the world as deranged, and leaves to complete his suicide.

The existence of god is a question explored in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by three brothers. Alyosha, a young, devoutly faithful man believes that God exists, and believes deeply in salvation through the forgiveness of sins. Alyosha is almost innocent in his faith, as demonstrated when an elder mentor becomes old and frail. Alyosha observes his lifelong mentor’s body falling apart, and he genuinely believes that a miracle will heal his mentor’s body for being a faithful man. Alyosha becomes extremely emotional when he observes that a miracle is not likely to happen, and claims that though his faith was shaken by this event, he was still certain of God’s existence. However, he does add that although he knows God exists, that he does not accept the world God created in which a miracle is not performed on his mentor.

In his famous work Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard declares that “no person has a right to delude others into the belief that faith is something of no great significance, or that it is an easy matter, whereas it is the greatest and most difficult of all things.” The difficulty of faith lies in the requirement of sacrifice. The story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac, is what Kierkegaard utilizes to demonstrate how costly faith in God is. Here is a man, who after seventy years of waiting for God’s promise of offspring finally received his son, is commanded by God to slay his promised son with no stated reason for doing so. Kierkegaard, in attempting to experience what Abraham might have experienced in those moments, cries, “Now all is lost, God demands Isaac, I shall sacrifice him, and with him all my joy – but for all that, God is love and will remain so for me.” What bold words! The cost