Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

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.

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.

Love can be forever, but it is not always enough to bring people through the tough times that they face. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a loving father and son struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world filled with barren lands and barbaric people. During their struggle to travel South, they depict a loving, if rocky relationship. Through the irreplaceable father son relationship McCarthy reveals that love can only carry people so far.

Throughout the novel “The Road by Cormac McCarthy, it displays the tale of survival, a world infested with murder, crime, and despair. However, the author conveys that although cruelty may arise in the world, love overcomes violence and that humanity has not been completely lost. Within the book, violence is shown in a great depth, thus because humans are thrown into a world filled with thievery, murder, and cannibalism as the result of a post-apocalyptic landscape. Despite the crimes that occur, altruism has been explored within the novel. Altruism is best described as the “willingness to do things that bring advantages to others, even if it results in disadvantage for yourself” (Dictionary Cambridge, 2017) Furthermore, two lessons that McCarthy conveys to his readers is that although one may help

“He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke” (McCarthy, 5). Throughout The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, the young boy is repeatedly seen as a Christ-like symbol to the man; a sign of hope and good morality. While the man is more occupied with finding food and fending for him and the boy, the boy is much more concerned over other people and their survival. The boy wants to consistently make sure him and his father are still “carrying the fire” and that they’re the “good guys.”

“The Road”, by Cormac McCarthy, is undoubtedly an extremely sad and depressing story. It explores how the destruction of civilization might bring out the evil in men and how our morals might disappear if we find ourselves in a place where there is no one or nothing to stop us. However, it also shows the good in humanity (Specifically with the boy). How even through all the evil, there would still be people that were inherently good. The question is, does this book paint an overall positive or negative view of humanity?

Life and death are inherently different, but inextricably intertwined. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, the wilted landscape still holds remnants of how the world functioned before the apocalypse occurred, though they exist only if the traveler on the Road knows where to look and what to believe. To show the intricate, interdependent relationship between life and death, McCarthy uses flashbacks for direct comparison and contrast between the past and present along with symbolism in one of the most notable sections of the book: the waterfall scene.

In times of peril, people tend to either unite to benefit each other or become self-centered vigilantes for their own personal gain. In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a father and son are travelling through a burned, post-apocalyptic America. Very few people remain alive, and those that are not alive are generally hostile and unfriendly. The father and son, “each the other’s world entire,” persevere through these harsh times with the goal of making it to the coast in the South. The father and son view themselves as “the good guys,” but there is a constant, looming threat of “the bad guys” as well.

Home is defined as a dwelling place together with the family; an environment offering security and happiness. Cormac McCarthy in The Road develops this love and passion using the man and the boy’s relationship. Throughout the novel the boy and the man don’t have a real home, moving constantly. Ultimately their version of home is not just a typical building they merely live in. However, they do find their home within each other and it takes a toll on who they are and who they become in the end of the novel.

The Road movie was an alright adaptation of the book by Cormac McCarthy. The movie had great moments that brought it to life but it also had things that would have fit better if it was done differently. For instance, The added scenes, like the piano, was a nice touch. Also, the scenery was very well thought out as well. Although, the casting wasn’t the best it could be. First of all, There were a lot of motifs in the movie but the one that caught my eye was the piano.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is his post-apocalyptic magnus opus which combines a riveting plot along with an unconventional prose style. Released in 2006, the novel has won awards such as the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award (Wilson). Oprah Winfrey also selected the book for her book club ("Cormac McCarthy”). The author, Cormac McCarthy, was born in 1933 in Rhode Island and is said to have wrote the novel because of his son and their relationship. The Road centers around a boy and his father while they try to survive after an unknown disaster occurs. While some people may argue that the unusual style takes away from the novel, it adds to the tone and meaning of the work.

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.

Cormac McCarthy’s writing of The Road is an apocalyptic writing that foreshadows the destruction of the world as we know it. The man and the son are continuously on the move, but their destination is unknown. The south represents a safe haven, or second chance for the family to find safety and comfort from the harsh winter to come. In the test Exploring Literature, a symbol is defined as “In literature, a person, place, or thing that suggest more than its literal meaning. Symbols generally do not “stand for: any single meaning, nor for anything absolutely definite; they point, they hint” (Kennedy 203). Symbolism plays a key role throughout the novel, from the bunker they found on an old farm to the different people the father and son came across throughout their journey to the south. The gun was a major symbol that was carried on through the novel. What I believe the meaning behind the gun was the symbol of life and death. Through the father’s eyes, he sees the gun as a way to protect his family, but also he knows it was a way to leave this wretched life behind. For the son, he views the gun as something that kills people or a way to control someone to do an immoral act. The opposing views of the man and son created tension that built throughout the novel, whenever the father held a person at gunpoint the son would beg for the person’s life. The son saw the evil that the gun created and the poor decisions his father made when the gun was in his hands. The gun represents

Composers often shape their work around the prism of their own experiences to allow the audience to understand the composer 's perception of the world. To achieve this they employ the use of various language techniques, as seen in The Road (Cormac McCarthy), City Of Glass (Paul Auster) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick).

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is bleak, nothing more and nothing less. To put it simply, the world has fallen apart, civilization is no more and everyone is surviving by any means necessary. Despite this depressing setting, McCarthy beautifully describes what the characters are seeing, like a broken down trailer blocking a bridge that’s filled with rotting corpses or a conversation between a man and his wife where the wife admits to have taken on a “new lover”. These scenes are far from typical beauty, one will quickly notice a lack of colors and an excess of muted browns and dull grays. Colors are a rare treat in the gray bleakness that is The Road, their appearance marks the beginning of a brief period of hope before fading into the sea of cold gray ash.