Analysis Of Post Apocalyptic World In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

The Road, a post apocalyptic novel,written by Cormac McCarthy, tells the story of a father and son traveling along the cold, barren and ash ridden interstate highways of America. Pushing all their worldly possessions in a shopping cart, they struggle to survive. Faced with despair, suicide and cannibalism, the father and son show a deep loving and caring that keeps them going through unimaginable horrors. Through the setting of a post apocalyptic society, McCarthy demonstrates the psychological effects of isolation and the need to survive and how these effects affect the relationships of the last few people on Earth.

A man and his son travelling alone amidst the ruins of a previously prosperous nation; a young man venturing into a treacherous land to tie up the loose ends in his life; a broken ranch hand that suspects he had a conversation with death: in the most desolate and uncertain environments, the surrounding world can lend a bleak and lifeless perspective to one’s struggle to survive. In lands without accompaniment from other humans, the will to live can be as difficult to muster as shelter for the night or the first meal in days. Cormac McCarthy explores the difficulties of survival under the tension of barren landscapes and youthful inexperience and their effects on the loss of innocence. Gained maturity enables humans to persist and stay hopeful, even in the least hopeful situations. These environments and mindsets play an important role in the messages of three novels by Cormac McCarthy: The Road, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain.

In the road, Ely has obviously given up on life, and people in general. “Things will be better when everybody’s gone… when we’re all gone at last then there’ll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too.” While Ely is not hateful or evil towards human beings like the bad guys, neither does he feel any inclination to help others. If he ever had a purpose in life, it would have been religion based, as he says “When I saw that boy, I thought that I had died,” and to the man’s question, “What if I said that he’s a god?” he replies, “I’m past all that now. Have been for years. Where men cant live gods fare no better.” The phrase “where men cant live gods fare no better” can be interpreted to mean that men carry their gods within them. When men get broken by suffering, their gods also disappear. McCarthy seems to be implies that religion centered purposes are also selfish and self-centered and that it is one’s own happiness and comfort that allows one’s god to exist. The Man is similarly selfish in purpose, which centers around the one boy, his son, who he deems his salvation. The man is able to kill other people with no hesitation when it comes to protecting the Boy and similarly shows no inclination to help others. Only because of the Boy’s begging and the recent replenishment of their food supply, does the Man allow the old man to share a meal with them.

The love between the protagonists in the times of hardship is the most profound relationship in the book and the strength of it raises the standard of the novel. The relation of the father and the son is very strong and symbolizes protection to the child. They take the initiative to struggle and live in an apocalyptic place which has been completely destroyed. The father is like the soul of his son and the very last hope for the son to survive .The son finds support in his son when he goes through the stages of loneliness and despair. It is a natural way for people to rely on others for support and by survival instincts; it is deeper when there is such a close relationship between a father and a son. McCarthy in terms of characterization makes the buy very innocent as he does not know how to differentiate between the “good guys” and “bad guys”. He wants to help everyone and on the other hand the father is very strong and is wise. He lives each and every day as a normal day so that he can keep his son strong as well. The father is very intelligent as he responds to his son questions thoughtfully to keep his son’s hope up. The father is very optimistic even when they are facing a hard time moving forward. To quote, “The lay listening, Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn’t fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn’t fire? Could you crush that beloved

In the novel The Road, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the actions, geographical setting, and expressions to shape the psychological traits in the characters struggle to find survival in the gloomy and inhumane civilization. McCarthy uses imagery that would suggest that the world is post-apocalyptic or affected by a catastrophic event that destroyed civilization. In Gridley’s article The Setting of McCarthy’s THE ROAD, he states “On one hand the novel details neither nuclear weapons nor radiation, but the physical landscape, with his thick blanket of ash; the father’s mystery illness; and the changes in the weather patterns of the southern United States all suggest that the world is gripped by something similar to a nuclear winter”(11). In other words, Gridley asserts that McCarthy sets the setting as an open mystery, so that anyone can draw his or her own conclusions. The surrounding of the colorless and desolate society affects the characters behavior positively and negatively. Similarly the surroundings and settings of the society illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole.

In a world where survival is your only concern, what would you do to stay alive? This is one of many thought-provoking questions that Cormac McCarthy encourages in his book, The Road. McCarthy, a Rhode Island native is a seasoned author, with more than 14 other works in his portfolio. McCarthy is a very private man, and there isn’t a lot known about him. The lack of information on McCarthy does not reflect his writing abilities, which are very strong and not lacking at all.

How is McCarthy able to make the post- apocalyptic world of the road seem so real and utterly terrifying? Which descriptive passages are especially vivid and visceral in their description of this blasted landscape? What so you find to be the most horrifying features of this world and the survivors who inhabit it?

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road portrays a gripping tale of survival of a father and son across a post-apocalyptic world that is devoured by marauders and cannibals who have abandoned all of their beliefs, morals and values and do anything to survive. In contrast, the two protagonists are portrayed as the ‘good guys’ who carry the ‘fire’, and try to survive in the obliterated world. They are challenged to maintain their own beliefs, morals and values as they enter their quest. As a young adolescent who has witnessed the harsh environments of a war torn country such as Afghanistan, and has prior experiences of being a refugee. The novel effectively

A man and a child, father and son, are alone against an inclement nature while pushing a cart filled with tools, blankets, and things that they have found along the way to the south. About ten years before the world had been reduced to ashes by an apocalyptic disaster, which it is not known whether it was caused by a natural event or the foolishness of human beings. The world is reduced to a single color, gray, that of the ashes covering all that is left, that of hearts and minds, clouded by the pain of the loss and the terror of solitude. All that is left of the humankind is a few tenacious survivors struggling unceasingly against hunger and cold, and those who have lost any trace of humanity giving free vent to the lowest instincts of oppression and violence. But in the novel “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy paints a vivid and dramatic picture of the catastrophic consequences of a cataclysm that are nothing more than an excuse to minimize the outer contingencies with the sole purpose to bring up what is really dear to his heart, the relationship between a father and a son. They have been deliberately left unnamed for the whole story to epitomize the archetypes of the man and the child, a hymn to paternity, and to unconditional love. In a world reduced to the essentials, McCarthy aims not merely to explore the complexities of the relationship between the two, which in fact remains

For ages, people have been debating the idea of human morality and whether or not at its core humanity is good or bad. This philosophy is explored in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. The road is the story of a man and boy living in a post-apocalyptic world. Some cataclysmic event has crippled Earth’s natural ecosystem, leaving the skies engulfed in ash and the ground devoid of much life. The duo aim to journey south as a way to escape being frozen to death in the oncoming winter. During their journey, the boy and man come across different people and places that give them a better understand of what humanity has become and where they stand on that spectrum. Throughout The Road, McCarthy revisits the idea of being the “good guy” when there is no longer a need to, “carrying the fire” as it’s detailed in the book. The dichotomy between the boy’s moral conscience and the man’s selfish ideals helps develop McCarthy’s idea of humanity losing its selflessness in the face of danger.

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.

At any place in the world, the core concept of society has always relied on community and order. It is these same concepts that shapes Modern human nature and its values. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road introduces the reader to a world where all forms of society has been torn down. The book follows two unnamed protagonists, a father and son duo, who are referred to as man and boy. They are traveling on a road through a post-apocalyptic United States where they must avoid the threat of other humans as well as a constant struggles to find food, shelter and warmth. Throughout the book, it becomes abundantly clear that when the structures that are put in place by society are destroyed, humans tend to revert back to their animalistic instinct. It is this same instinct that priorities self survival over the artificial values and morality of human nature that has become the norm of today's society.

In recent decades, Cormac McCarthy has staked his claim as one of the all-time titans of American literature through publishing masterpieces like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Road. In his works his advanced level of technical mastery becomes apparent through his expertly harmonized coordination of literary elements toward certain narrative ends, such as the generation of suspense. In this light, McCarthy’s literary style is a practical one, in that he organizes literary elements in his works toward actualizing particular goals. In The Road, for instance, McCarthy directs his style throughout the text so as to maximize the feeling of suspense that readers experience throughout the book. This kind of stylistic maneuvering is expressed on pages 105-110 and pages 118-123 of the the text. But, it must be noted here that the generation of suspense in these passages does not result from similar stylistic approaches. McCarthy uses style in differently in Passage A and Passage B but ultimately toward the same end, namely generating suspense for readers of The Road. Passage A relies on dialogue to develop its suspense, whereas the style of Passage B relies on narrative action for its suspense.

The Road takes place in post-apocalyptic America after an unknown disaster occurs. The novel centers around a boy and his father, both of whom are never given names. In an analepse, the reader learns that the mother of the boy kills herself with “a flake of obsidian” as she fears that she would be raped and murdered (McCarthy 30). “[The man] hadn’t kept a calendar for years” and the reader is left unsure what year or month it is (McCarthy 2). The man is sure, however, that winter is approaching and it would be best for him and the boy to travel south where it is warmer. They have nothing but a pistol, their clothes, and a cart with food they scavenged for. The world is barren with “dust and ash everywhere” (McCarthy 3). The story chronicles the man and boy’s journey to the south while they look for food, supplies, and shelter. The pair must fend off “bad guys” during their journey as well (McCarthy 39). When one of these “bad guys” puts his knife at the boy’s throat, the man is left with no other option than to shoot the “bad guy” leaving a “hole in his forehead” (McCarthy 34). Another gruesome event occurs when the man and boy are looking for food in a house they found. While walking down a cellar’s stairs, they smell an “ungodly stench” (McCarthy 56). In the cellar, there are “naked people” who are whispering “help us” and a maimed man on a mattress with his “legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt” (McCarthy 56). These people are being kept to be eaten eventually and the man and his son

Imagine yourself living in a barren, desolate, cold, dreary world, with a constant fear of the future. The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy and published in 2006, is a vivid and heartwarming novel that takes us through the journey of a father and a son as they travel South in a post-apocalyptic environment facing persistent challenges and struggles. McCarthy proves that love unleashes immense strength to overcome obstacles, even in times of desperation.