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An Exile From Ethics In Karmac Mccarthy's The Road

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An Exile from Ethics The exile of one from a country can be overcome. Other lands can be found, other people to call family, other nations to pledge allegiance to. Humanity is something from which exile is devastating. Not only from humanity in the physical sense, but also a moral and ethical sense. There is no crime for which this would be an appropriate punishment. This is, however, what the boy and the man were forced to live through in The Road. This experience was brought upon them without their consent and they were forced to adapt or die. Seemingly nothing enriching could possibly come from this in comparison to what life was like before the event that led to this post-apocalyptic setting. Nothing, however, is just what was enriching. The pure desolation of the setting and that the boy and the man only had each other for comfort would usually cause more alienation, but quite the opposite occurred. Through their short and curt conversations, a unique connection is created, “It’s really cold. I know. Where are we? Where are we? Yes. I dont know. If we were going to die would you tell me? I dont know. Were not going to die” (McCarthy 94). While this may appear to reveal a shallow relationship that is purely for survival, so …show more content…

Many turned to cannibalism and enslavement, “What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit” (McCarthy 198). The two had not been alienated from society, rather they were the only ones left of a civilized society, therefore becoming exiles. They did nothing different and, unfortunately, this lack of change is what signed their death warrant. Regardless of how hard they fought for survival, their morals would inevitably hinder them from surviving such an amoral world. The concept of kill or be killed was a reality and there was no guarantee one of them could always pull the

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