Analysis Of The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

As Wendy Martin says “the poem leaves the reader with painful impression of a woman in her mid-fifties, who having lost her domestic comforts is left to struggle with despair. Although her loss is mitigated by the promise of the greater rewards of heaven, the experience is deeply tragic.” (75)

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is set sometime in the future after a global catastrophe. The Road follows the story of a nameless father and son, possibly the last of the “good guys”, as they travel along an abandoned stretch of highway populated with occasional marauders and cannibals. The post-apocalyptic setting plays upon the public’s fear of terrorism, pandemics, genocide, and weapons of mass destruction. Since the cause of the destruction remains unanswered, it is left open to the mind to make assumptions. The Roadi is set somewhere in the south eastern United States. There is mention of distant mountains, several rivers and creeks, and a coastline. The landscape and the air are soaked in thick, gray ash. Vegetation has been

This is the modern, everyday life of many unfortunate people. For People of all ages. You can hear on the news about wives and children and even husbands who were killed in acts of rage and domestic violence. Even though I am unable to relate to this certain passage, I was still touched and I actually felt sympathy for these fictitious characters.

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.

In the first pages of the book McCarthy paints a vivid picture of this world through a short dialogue, “Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now. And we’re still going south. Yes. So we’ll be warm. Yes. Okay. Okay what? Nothing. Just okay. Go to sleep. Okay. I’m going

The Road by Cormac McCarthy details a post-apocalyptic world with mysterious origins. While there are many questions about this world, the reader is left to their own imagination to determine how it got that way. Within this world, there is a man and a boy, father and son trying to make their way and survive until they can find a safe haven that may or may not exist. The see many things along the way and the man instills in the boy that it is important to remain a good guy and always “carry the fire”. Carrying the fire refers to the light inside of you that makes you who you are and may also carry the “goodness” of human nature. Inevitably, the man meets his fate via a mysterious illness leaving the boy on his own. The boy is then introduced to a family that has been following them knowing that the man was not well and the boy would need someone to look after him.

It also shows a shift from the present situation to a future one then back to the present. In the beginning of the poem the son is currently waiting for his father to tell him a story and has a sense of eagerness to him while the father has a sense of tiredness to him. This scene is depicted as the father being “in a room full of books in a world of stories,” (6-7) yet the father has difficult trying to come up with a story to tell despite how many are around home. The room that they are in is described as having books of stories inside of it and outside of the room is the whole world that is full of stories to tell. At this point the problem is that the father cannot think of a story to tell his son who asked him to tell him a new story which, according to the father, seems to be the beginning of the end. The father believes that since he is not able to tell stories as quickly and easily as he could before then one day soon, “the boy will give up on his father,” (8-9). These thoughts help to prepare and give background to the glimpse into the future when the boy is getting ready to leave his father by packing his clothes and having his keys ready to go. Since the father saw the day he would lose his son to manhood, once the day actually came the father seemed very upset at the boy but not for leaving but more so for the reasons that he is. The father yells at the son, “Are you a god...that I sit mute before you? Am I a god that I should never disappoint,” (16-18). It seems that the father and son have had an argument or disagreement and the son did not want to deal with all the problems that had grown to be too much for him so he chooses to not say anything to his father at all as he is getting ready to leave. The father calls him out on this and claims that he is imperfect and will disappoint

This connects to the overall message of the memoir that not everything is going to work out in one’s favor, but imagining improved conditions can help the nature of the situation. As an adolescent teenager Jack’s father promises him that he and his brother can live with him in California and Jack had extravagant plans in the future for his family to live together as one big happy family. It was revealed prior to this passage that Jack’s ideal situation did not work out for him, and the promise presented by his father was broken, which was only one among many unfulfilled promises Jack faced. The fictional circumstances that Jack creates help him escape the harsh rejection of his dreams and his innocence kept his dream alive. Another reason I chose this passage is because Wolff is reflecting on his childhood with the eyes of a much wiser

He then continues this juxtaposition by stating “I could not bring My passions from a common spring.” This further exaggerates the characterization by stating that he could not be passionate about the same things that other kids were. The following lines state “From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone” This not only continues to characterize the speaker as being different from others through juxtaposition, but the antithesis in these lines display that he is a polar opposite compared to others. By stating that he could not obtain sorrow from the same ways as others did and could not become joyful due to the same reasons, it shows that his happiness comes from things that would normally be depressing, and vise versa. Line eight states “And all I loved, I loved alone.” The tone of this line is one of independence and self-reliance, however the mood given by the line is depressed and lonely. This shows that the speaker was not fully aware of his depression until

In the story, the narrator, who is the author, struggles with knowing that his son died. He finds no joy and no consolation (Wolterstorff, 1987). He must fly across the ocean in order to claim his son’s body in order to bury him (Wolterstorff, 1987). No parent should bury their child is something the author heartily believes. He draws parallels of placing his son in a cradle as he places him in the coffin (Wolterstorff, 1987). This is hard for him because he only sees the darkness and cannot find God in such darkness.

Happiness is to be found in the little things that are around us. Grieving over misfortunes is the sole reason why a black and white picture creates an image of perfection while life itself lacks color. The author expresses his feelings of despair through literary arts as if it was a joke. The message that is portrayed through this passage is that no matter what obstacle you are faced with, persistence should be kept in

The Road is a story where is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the date and location is unnamed. The author of the novel Cormac McCarthy doesn 't describe why or how the disaster has demolish the earth. But after reading the novel, I can sense that the author wanted to present a case of mystery and fear to the unknown to the reader. By the author 's exclusion I think that the story gains a better understanding of what the author wanted to express to the reader. An expression of a man and his son surviving in a post-apocalyptic setting.

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.

Again, the author selects a new set of imagery, such as stars, moon, sun, ocean, and wood to remind of the heaven in which the speaker used to live, and then to sweep it off right away. The last statement “For nothing now can ever come to any good” (16) finally reinforces the speaker’s loss and unhappiness. In loneliness, the speaker’s love becomes fiercer and more truthful. It is the fierceness and truthfulness that lead the speaker to the last stair of hopelessness. The end of the poem is also the hopeless end of the speaker’s life because of “nothing …good.”