Divergence Short Story Summary

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, is an enticing, but soul-wrenching novel that perfectly conveys the precise conditions of a cold, desolate world, in which one feels utterly isolated. McCarthy does not hesitate to go into detail about powerful or foul events within the plot. He says exactly what he means, and can effectively incorporate forceful interactions between the characters and each other, as well as characters and their given environment. By using the literary devices of symbolism, imagery, and theme, McCarthy handcrafts a novel with such eloquence and grace that such a bleak and miserable world is perhaps a seemingly beautiful one.

Cormac McCarthy’s brain child “The Road” is a postapocalyptic novel that illustrates the harsh reality of the world. This story serves as a truth that humans, when stripped of their humanity will take desperate measures in order to survive. The reader learns; however even when it seems all hope is lost good can still be found in the world. The son character of this story illuminates this philosophy. He is a foil of his father and shows how even a person never accustomed to the luxury of a normal life can still see goodness.

The Road is about a father and a young boy who take on the south after a huge catastrophe hits the world. The father and boy in the story are never named, which makes it very hard to read. They have many hardships like finding food, supplies, and shelter. They come along many different things like abandoned houses, people, and terrifying landscapes. When the father and young boy come upon the house and different people, the reader is excited because you never knew what was going to happen to the main characters, and when something good happened, their success was your success. Even though they battle through these hardships they find a way through it. The Road has a deep explanation of the road, the father’s dream, and the different people the man and the boy meet along the way. The author, Cormac McCarthy, uses imagery to make the descriptions vivid and clear which adds to the intensity of the novel.

In the novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the expressions, settings and the actions by various literary devices and the protagonist’s struggle to survive in the civilization full of darkness and inhumanity. The theme between a father and a son is appearing, giving both the characters the role of protagonist. Survival, hope, humanity, the power of the good and bad, the power of religion can be seen throughout the novel in different writing techniques. He symbolizes the end of the civilization or what the world had turned out to be as “The Cannibals”. The novel presents the readers with events that exemplify the events that make unexpected catastrophe so dangerous and violent. The novel reduces all human and natural life to the

This book doesn't just make you think about your life in a different way, it makes you think about writing in a different way. There's so many little things in the book that were symbolically important, Art on the first day of school and how she would be working on making a tree different, not just a tree. You began to realize the more Melinda learned and the more Melinda went through, the more she began to understand the tree, the roots, and the dying leaves. There's many things in this book that are symbolically that you might not notice unless you analyze it in your own way.

Camus, the author of The Stranger, was a strong believer of absurdism, the belief that life is lived and existing with no meaning whatsoever, concluding that to find the meaning of human life will require an adsorb journey of negativity. In The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault, begins as an unemotional outsider, progressing through a stage of anger toward himself, and concludes with a stage of happiness and positivity towards the world. But throughout most of the time, he was in the first dull stage, living life as a constant boring routine, lacking communication and only at the very end realizing that life could be lived well, before his unfortunate execution due to past consequences. Groundhog Day shares a similar theme of that of The Stranger, in which the main protagonist, Phil Connors, progresses through three critical stages of life realization. He began as a selfish, egocentric news reporter, to a depressed and even suicidal stage, and concludes with a relieving extroverting attitude toward others, when the meaning of his life is realized. The movie’s plot plays a key role in this, when he repeats the second day of February over and over again from his same motel bedroom. As the loop continues, he edges off the boring routine life, re-examines it, and knows of his life priorities to benefit

Balance and stability are necessary for humans as individuals and without these, individuals will face chaotic circumstances. In the novel, the father of the protagonist, Ed Boone, is an example of a character that

In the novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer tells the story of a Chris McCandless through different points of view perceived from people close to him. Despite the fact the Krakauer did not personally know Chris McCandless, Krakauer uses opinions from himself and others to help conclude meaning and impact behindMcCandless’s journey. Krakauer introduces events in the story in an order such that it also introduces the significance behind them. These techniques help the reader conclude the mystery behind Chris McCandless’s journey.

For instance, he remembers clearly what happened now that “summer has long since fled and time has had its way." Brother expresses how summer is taken away from him too soon. Even so, this particular event sticks vividly in his mind. This hints that Brother is feeling responsible for Doodle’s death, as he looks back and replays it in his mind, thinking how this fatal outcome could have been prevented. Not only is Brother upset with himself, but also at time because it went by too fast, seeming like this was done to him on purpose. These emotions felt by the narrator shows how guilty he feels. Likewise, the use of flashback is shown when Brother looks out the kitchen window thinking of Doodle as “the grindstone begins to turn, and time with all its changes is ground away-.” A relationship can be detected between the grindstone and Doodle. Right outside the kitchen window was where the bleeding tree once stood, and the grindstone now stands. The bleeding tree is also where the scarlet ibis dies, and through symbolism, it is shown that the scarlet ibis represents Doodle. Additionally, Hurst describes that instead of grinding away Brother’s past, the grindstone reminds him of his memories with Doodle. For instance, “time with all its changes” refers to Doodle dying. This is a heartbreaking event, causing a feeling of guilt in Brother. Using flashback, Hurst has clearly conveyed the guilt Brother feels when Doodle

On the movie Groundhog Day, which shows a character who thinks he is better than anybody else that he is stuck on the same day, so he can discover that being that type of person can be change. In the movie a self-consumed TV weatherman from Pittsburgh, Phil goes to Punxsutawney to report on the famed groundhog living there. His new producer Rita and long-time cameraman Larry join him. Phil spends the night in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he does not want to go and does not want to stay in a cheap hotel to sleep in. Phil need to do a broadcast the next day about the annual ritual of the "Groundhog Day," which celebrated the day when a groundhog wakes up and sees its shadow, it means winter is over. From the very beginning, Phil hates the assignment, hates the town, being very rude and irritated by Rita, Larry, and anybody else that talks to him. He wakes up the next morning annoyed that must do the news. He does his story and is very annoyed to discover that he is trapped in Punxsutawney for a second night because of a snowstorm that he did not predict comes when they were leaving. He tries his best to get out of the town by saying he is a celebrity. When he wakes up in his guest house room the next morning, it is the morning of the day before

You can see is threw many symbols the author chosses to include. A symbol could be school. To many students school is dredded adn usually something they do not spacificlly look forward too. But for David un the early days of his abuse, school is a sanctuary for him. He kind of relys on it for safty because it is not safe at home , as well as food when he is beign starved. Yet after a while it starts resembaling his home life after his fellow classments beat him up as well and his teachers neglect to do anything after noticeing the abuse. Another symblol that may have shwoed how cirten situations acn effect a changeracter is the drift wood. In the memoir's epilogue, David watches a piece of driftwood being pulled in and out by the ocean waves. Like the drift wood it shows how his childhood was mainly spent figting agenst forces that kept pulling and holding him back, yet it fought or pushed through till it finally got to the

The Narrator is a very smart, loving, yet insecure person. After the death of his brother Doodle, he remembers all of the mistakes he made and feels very bad about it. Even though he loved his brother very much, he treated him wrong many different times. For example when his brother was five years old he was embarrassed by him and to be seen with him because of the fact he couldn’t walk even though he knew Doodle was paralyzed. Out of shame teaches him to walk and other things that push Doodle too hard. One day, a rare, injured bird alights in a backyard tree. It falls and dies, foreshadowing Doodle’s early death. He is killed after being deserted by his brother in a terrible storm. Because of all of the terrible things he did and how he treated Doodle he deals with his death with grief and

We often consider the world to be filled with core truths, such as how people should act or what constitutes a good or bad action. In The Road, McCarthy directly challenges those preconceptions by making us question the actions of the characters and injecting a healthy dose of uncertainty into the heroes’ situation. From the very beginning, the characters and their location remain ambiguous. This is done so that the characters are purposely anonymous, amorphously adopting all people. While on the road, the order of the day is unpredictability; whether they find a horde of road-savages or supplies necessary for his son’s survival is impossible to foretell. While traveling, the boy frequently asks “are we the good guy” and the father always replies with “yes” or “of course,” but as the story progresses this comes into question.

There are more significant symbols in the novel such as The Boy. The Man and Boy fight to survive many hardships, but through the darkness there is light, The Boy. He is very mature and cares for every stray person they pass. One person he cares for is a man named Ely, an old man with nothing but the clothes on his back, until he meets The Boy and his father." 'You should thank him you know, I wouldn’t have given you anything' "(McCarthy 173). The Boy wants everyone to survive and is willing to share his supplies even if it means he won`t have all the things he needs to live.

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.