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Examples Of Evil In Cormac Mccarthy The Road

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Riley Braun, Caleb Godard, Hannah Jonesia, Garrett Leeson
Miss Burton
Pre-AP English 2
September 9, 2015
Necessary Evil
Words That Give Direction: Support, Refute, Qualify
Important Words: Support, Belief support: experienced father, naive/innocent boy belief: state in thesis
Thesis: In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the idea that someone cannot experience goodness before they discover evil is strengthened by the dynamic between the cautious father and the naive and innocent nature of the boy.
Paragraph 1: father’s struggle with morality
CD1: “fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from a hole in his head,”
CD2: “the boy crying and looking back at the nude and slatlike creature standing there in the road and shivering and hugging himself”
Paragraph 2: boy’s compassion
CD1: “carrying the fire”
CD2: “I don’t want the gun.”

The idea that evil may be …show more content…

As the man faces choosing lesser evils in order to survive, he compliments the goodness found in his son, who instead of basing his actions off his own survival, he bases them off his innocent desire to be and do good, as he asks his father on several occasions after partaking in questionable acts if they are still “carrying the fire.” While his father is preoccupied with survival, he is focused on helping those survivors he sees around him in a naive hope to be the “good guy.” At one point, his father thinks death is right around the corner and tells his son to “take the gun,” but his son refuses saying, “I don’t want the gun,” (70.5-6). The boy only associates the gun with its ability to take life away, excluding the protection it gives him and his father, which- in his eyes -makes the gun a symbol of evil and destruction; something he wishes to be separate from. However, the boy takes the gun anyways, finally realizing that its “evil” is necessary in order to survive, so that he may continue to “carry the fire” of the “good

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