Literary Analysis Of Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Using vivid imagery with sentences like “With the knife to the boys throat” and using visual and kinesthetic diction such as “bubbling” demonstrating how brief and briskly a life can be taken in the deadly post apocalyptic world including, suggesting a scary mortiferous mood to the reader. And repeatedly mentioning “pistol” in the passage expressed Papa’s weapon and exactly what kind of gun was being used in the scene. In the dialogue right before the passage you see McCarthy's unique style with dialgos of not using quotation marks implying possibly that in that life one’s mind and what he speaks has not much difference also making the author have his own unique syntax. Furthermore, he also uses the simile the literary device where the boy is “mute as a stone.” signifying his silent horror of the event where a life was sacrificed/murdered for his

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 boy” and “The man/ papa” set forth on a journey to find a home, a simple most mundane thing which, in their case is an impervious destination. Each day went by and “the boy” and “The man/papa” constantly moved mile after mile trying to fulfill their desires for a dwelling. This same craving is found in McCarthy’s life as he traveled from one place to another due to his father's work. Because McCarthy never settled in an area for a

Currently, it seems that popular literature is filled with post-apocalyptic novels. These books sometimes venture into the fantasy and sci-fi genres, but always they portray the author’s idea of what humanity could look like after the world as we know it has ended. More importantly, they serve as mirrors for the vices currently plaguing society, demonstrating how these faults metastasize into major forces of evil when placed in the context of desperate circumstances. The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing description of a father-son pair slogging through the desolation of an unknown apocalypse, is no exception. McCarthy sets himself apart by emphasizing the nature of good and evil, utilizing flawless prose, and relentlessly confronting the reader with the inescapability of mortality. Truly, The Road is a brutally honest commentary on humanity’s capacity for cruelty and the never-ending struggle towards goodness.

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me” says Joshua Graham, who, although a video game character, speaks words of wisdom on the subject. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road develops characters who frequently utilize fire on their post-apocalyptic Earth for warmth, cooking, and protection. These usages are evidently essential for endurance, but the story also presents this element in a more significant manner. The boy and his father consistently mention the phrase “carrying the fire” throughout their incessant journey. Contributing to an insightful meaning of the entire novel, the fire is a symbol of humanity’s residual hope in survival and morality.

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.

In the novel McCarthy writes about how the boys mother killed herself because she couldn’t handle the gloom of a world she was living in, along with the fear of cannibalistic cults. She left her son ‘the boy’ behind without a mother which left the boy to grow up without that motherly nurturing influence in his life which lead to the boy maturing a lot faster than he would have

A road symbolizes a path in which each human must take. A person can choose to sacrifice what they have or choose a path of greediness and selfishness. But there is always a consequence for choosing the good path, as seen in The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The father is the one that must make a decision for both him and his son- be a "good guy" and give up everything in hope of surviving, or be consumed by evil which would inevitably create an unrecognizable man. Humans are flawed in a sense where their goal is either only advantageous to themselves, or in a senseless way for other people. Was the father being selfless and giving everything for the life of his son or keeping his son alive in this disastrous and dangerous world because he couldn’t go on without him? Was the father being selfish or selfless? Every time he told the son to "carry the fire", he wanted him to keep the only shred of humanity and hope left. Someone has to carry that fire, the memory of what was, all the good things that life had, and all of the reasons for mankind to survive. It’s a choice between being a thinker of the new world, or a hunter of the old. Cormac McCarthy accomplished showing the idea of

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

Throughout the world, animals have protected and cared their young from the dangers they must face or encounter such as how humans must protect their children in order to thrive. This is how life is for the protagonist and his son in the book, The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy that introduces us to a man and his son trying to reach the south of the U.S. in order to find salvation. During their journey, they must survive in the wasteland against cannibals and other survivors along the way. Thus, illustrates how they must fight in order to survive throughout the wasteland they wander. Although the Father and Son live in a world of great depravity and hardship, the Father has imparted “The Fire” because his Son is the only person in this wasteland willing to help others rather than scavenge them.

(McCarthy 72) This is the father’s way of connecting with his son and family and creating an unbreakable family bond. Although it is obvious that the father loves his son it is also apparent that the father fears losing his son and family so he attempts to invoke conservative ideology. As Bryan M. Satin examines, “The Road dramatically augments the fear and uncertainty as well as the family loyalty with the United States after the attacks. In many ways, the father is an allegorical figure for the neoconservative response to this kind of post-9/11 world.”

Cormac McCarthy, known to be a great novelist and playwright was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20, 1933 (“McCarthy, Cormac 1933-”). He was the third child, and eldest son of six children born to Charles Joseph and Gladys Christina McGrail McCarthy (Cormac McCarthy). He was widely viewed as a “presiding genius” of American literature and was said to carry an “electric charge like no other” (Hage, Erik 5). McCarthy is often described as a “kindly older man” who “gave no hints” to his “imagination” that had created classic works like those of Hemingway and Faulkner (Hage, Erik 3). He avoided public appearances, and remained “absorbed in his writing” not in the “construction of his writing persona,” therefore, making him a very humble man (Hage, Erik 5).

McCarthy places the audience in the heat of the action, giving a setting near “dawn” (2) and the image of a man getting off his horse and dropping “the reins” (4). With a clear visual of the setting the audience can picture themselves witnessing the action first hand. McCarthy paints a vivid picture of the character’s whereabouts, saying “when he woke it was still dark. The fire had died to a few

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.