Hope Essay

McCarthy’s The Road exemplifies the struggle to survive throughout the entire novel. In the most trying times, during the longest stretches without food, the father’s persistence and confidence

The father does not comply with his son and leaves the naked man alone in the cold. This further shows the differences between the boy and his father. The final contrast between the two is exemplified with the ending. Throughout the book the reader is allowed to assume that if the son dies in the novel then the father would consequently commit suicide. At the end of the story when the father dies first the boy stays strong and decides to blindly follow other survivors and put his faith in them. Throughout, the story; however the father doesn't put any trust into anyone. His son, being a foil of him decides to put his faith into other survivors and takes a leap of faith and follow them their camp. This instance further shows the stark difference between the father and the son.

During a conversation between the father and Ely, a man they encountered in the road, Ely says, “When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He'll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He'll say: Where did everybody go? And that's how it will be. What's wrong with that?” (McCarthy 173). When reading this, the reader is able to feel the sense of isolation each person feels within this time. By personifying Death, McCarthy further instills that the land is so barren and dead that even Death has lost a purpose, Death is isolated. McCarthy’s ability to evoke such an emotion within a reader allows the reader to understand the feeling of isolation and despair within the father and his son and any other refugee left, such as

In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the man and the boy are on a constant journey towards survival. Limited visibility is prevalent within different aspects of this novel. One is within the man, as he has a limited view on humanity itself. Throughout the novel, the man is

The ability to paint beautiful ideas on a canvas of dark events and imagery is an essential skill in the arsenal of an accomplished writer. In his novel The Road, Cormac McCarthy demonstrates his understanding of this skill. A reviewer from the San Francisco Chronicle described The Road saying, “[McCarthy’s] tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy’s stature as a living master. It’s gripping, frightening, and, ultimately, beautiful.” These descriptions of the tale are true throughout the novel, but particularly at the ending of the story. In the final pages of the book, McCarthy continues to engage the reader with gripping and frightening moments, to emphasize the theme of survival, and to reveal beauty and “the miracle of goodness.”

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.

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.

McCarthy portrays the loss of humanity in various ways, including cannibalism, rape, killing, lack of life, and no sun. Despite the bleakness of the world in which the characters reside, hope remains a crucial survival mechanism for the characters. The importance of hope for the characters is demonstrated through their actions and thoughts. The boy and the man's unrelenting desire to move forward and their refusal to give up hope is an example of how hope drives the characters to keep moving forward. Even though they face seemingly insurmountable challenges, the family's decision to keep moving towards the coast is driven by hope.

Papa wishes for the boy to live on as the “good guy” and “carry the fire” (McCarthy 278). This sense of duty, “carrying the fire”, gives reason for the boy to live on. The “fire” that he carries can be seen as a symbol for the light in the darkness that surrounds it. By choosing not to eat people, Papa and the boy retain their humanity, thus they are “carrying the fire” of humanity. The apocalypse has drastically changed the landscape in such a way that cannibalism has become the norm and that Papa and the boy, who represent the pre-apocalypse humanity, have become the minority.

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

In The Road by Cormac McCarthy the father and the son overcomes nature’s obstacles by dealing with cannibals. The father and the son face many dangers and cannibals are one of the biggest. Throughout the book they encounter many sites of cannibalism. Such as the time when they come across what they thought was food but couldn’t really distinguish what it was until they took a closer look… “They walked into the little clearing, the boy clutching his hand… he looker quickly to see what had happened. What is it? He said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant, headless and gutted and blackening on the spit,” (198). McCarthy depicted the absolutely worst social breakdown. The weakest and most helpless of human beings – an infant – was preyed upon. Like stated before, there are other violent images in the novel, but this one seemed important to state. It shows the extreme violence, hunger, and cannibalism that the novel created in one

Right from the beginning of the book, McCarthy sets a tone of desperation and misery. However, at times, he hints to threads of lingering hope and happiness hidden deep within both the man and the boy. McCarthy indicates this, as the two travel down the road, with this quote. Even though they are surrounded by a desolate, brutal world, they are still able to find some source of joy. The bond between the man and his son is strong; each of them is all the other has left for a sense of optimism. Instead of walking down the hill, like they always have, the man chooses the more entertaining way for his son. This section is significant because it shows that the man, despite the harsh world they now live in, will still do anything to see his son happy,

”(McCarthy 17). One can very easily tell the need for food they have, especially when the father emphasizes how they are always looking for food at the end of the quote. The boy and father are not cannibals either, meaning they have less food, and are a target for those who are cannibals. Cannibals are their main threat. The father saved two bullets in his pistol so that he and his son could commit suicide instead of being eaten alive.

The encounters and interactions the man and boy had while on the road help develop McCarthy’s larger theme of humanity losing its selflessness when it’s in danger. For example, while the man and the boy are traveling to the coast they come across a burnt man, half-dead lying in the road. After some observation, the boy asks the man if they could “help him” but is continuously shot down by his father who repeatedly tells him to “stop it” (McCarthy 50). The Road’s setting is one of the strongest over the weak, those who can’t survive for themselves they simply won’t. This burnt man, who was struck by lightning, is an example of that as he is now in no condition to scavenge for food and medical supplies and will probably just die where he currently sits. The boy, realizing this, wanted to do something to give the man even a small chance at survival, but the man knew he was a lost cause and should be left to die. The boy and his overwhelming desire to help the dying man is representative of old society and its pressure to help those with lesser than you, ideals that were result of religious codes and churches. But in a world where none of that matters or is present, the man is what humanity has become, selfish being whom only care about

In a desolate world ravaged by fire, a boy and his father trudge across the countryside. They encounter people in their most desperate times where their motives are unpredictable and noone can be trusted. The boy and his father try to maintain their morality while facing starvation and having to deal with unpredictable people they encounter on the road. Cormac McCarthy in his novel The Road, uses the theme of hope to demonstrate the human trait that purpose is essential to survival.