Night Road Narrative

Imagine a world where the skies are grey and the ground is torn to pieces. Where there is no civilisation present, nor another human being to be seen. Where the feeling of hunger influences you to consider the idea of human flesh filling your insides and persuading you to do so. A world infested with murder, crime and despair- which have now become necessary for survival. Imagine the air thick with black clouds towering over your very essence and having to muddle through 10 feet of snow and a strong gust of wind. A world where all faith should be gone, but amiss all bad things, it continues to linger through the eyes of the youth. Being able to see the light when your surroundings are pitch black signifies that humanity has not been lost completely. Although, the man knows in his heart that death is inevitable and dangerously close, he continues to live for the sake of the boy whom he believes carries the final hope for humanity.

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.

was a new route and this was only the second time that Mendez had taken it.

Cormack McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is set in a post apocalyptic world, where humanity is struggling to survive. Through his simplistic writing style and powerful symbolism, McCarthy tells a story about the human condition as well as what it truly means to be human. Though it is set in a wasteland this novel still manages to project hope through the love of a boy and his father. The following passages are quotes that spoke to me stylistically or symbolically while I was reading.

As one is put through times of strife and struggle, an individual begins to lose their sense of human moral and switch into survival mode. Their main focus is their own survival, not of another's. In the post-apocalyptic novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a father and son travel along the road towards the coast, while battling to survive the harsh weather and scarce food supply, as well as avoid any threats that could do them harm. Throughout their journey along the road, the father and son are exposed to the horrid remnants of humanity. As a result, the father and son constantly refer to themselves as “the good guys” and that they “carry the fire”, meaning they carry the last existing spark of humanity within themselves. By the acts of compassion

In the novel “The Road’ Cormac McCarthy tells the story of a boy and his father in a post apocalyptic world. McCarthy uses many different things to create a real and terrifying view of this world. The way the book is written and the details that are added help show us the how truly dreadful the world is. It also creates an understanding of the awful condition the world is left in and the horrible state the survivors are in. Many passages throughout the book give a clear description of the world and the survivors. The novel shows the reality in a post apocalyptic world and gives a different take on the way people act and live.

The book The Road Cormac McCarthy creates a darkened mood when he puts this son and father into a destroyed world. McCarthy created this concept of a world to intensify the meaning of the piece all together. This darkness in the world creates to fear and the isolation for characters to realize that this is how life is from now on. The son in this novel comes to the realization of the world due to certain events within the novel that manipulation the view the son has on the world.

Warfare in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road: Excavating the Trauma Within All soldiers that enter the war are challenged with two extremely significant encounters; the one against the opposition and the personal battle within themselves. In Joseph Boyden's, Three Day Road, the unique experiences of ancestral history and cultural assimilation indeed challenge the characters of Xavier and Elijah. Their experiences from a residential schooling system burrow a hatred into Xavier, but more predominantly Elijah, and is revealed as the two friends experience the war together. Xavier’s own ancestry of windigo killers is exposed when the war presents unconceivable problems, but he is able to revolt against most of them due to his strong spiritual

Prometheus, a Titan in ancient Greek mythology, stole the fire from Zeus, the ruler of all Gods, and gave it to humanity, even when Zeus strictly told him not to. As punishment, Prometheus is bound to a rock. Every day, an eagle swoops in to eat his liver, but Prometheus does not die. His liver regenerates only to be eaten again the following day. Because Prometheus “carried the fire” to humanity, his days are forever filled with torture. Similar to the situation that appears in the Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, the main characters, a man and his son also “carry the fire” for the sake of mankind. “Carrying the fire”, a motif that Cormac McCarthy portrays throughout his novel, The Road, can be used to explain the reasoning behind why

Three Day Road takes place in 1919 after the first world war in northern Ontario. An Oji-Cree medicine woman named Niska, who has received the good news of the return of a family friend from war, decided to go and retrieve him from the train station. Yet instead of the expected meeting with Elijah, she finds herself face to face with her supposedly dead nephew Xavier Bird. Although he had survived through the war, it had cost him a leg. Realizing he was surviving off the military’s morphine and his disease was truly from the inside, Niska knew the last thing there was to keep him alive were the stories that kept her alive through the winters of her childhood. In return, Xavier decides to tell Niska stories of the war. He revealed that he and

Both for the young and old, love is vital when trying to maintain hope and faith. Love is the candel needed to shed the light required to navigate one’s life. In the novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, by the boy acting as the man's moral, spiritual, and motivational compass, the author depicts his belief of how love will keep one strong even in the darkest of times.

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

In the wake of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, America’s new world view became entrenched in fear and insecurity. The very core of America’s belief system was rocked. This new mistrust of humanity is similar to one reflected in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, and is especially evident in the views of the father and his millennial generation son as they travel through a vast wasteland and explore the theme of good versus evil.

Setting: Tom Wolfe is riding in the back of an old pickup truck through the streets of San Francisco with the Merry Pranksters. The time period is the 1960s.

Women are often perceived as mother figures who stand by their husbands no matter what type of situation they encounter. They are expected to give a perfect image to society and do not get the greater say. Eugene O 'Neill’s play, A Long Day’s Journey into the Night (1940), gives the reader a representation of a woman who is still influenced by these standard societal expectations. The character, Mary Tyrone, depends greatly of her husband and will not leave him even if she wanted to. In The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin, the reader is introduced to Edna Pontellier who is the complete opposite. She exposes the dissatisfaction that women feel and decides to act upon it. These two characters feel that they do not belong in the lifestyle they are given. They struggle with their identity due to their husbands’ lack of affection. As a result, marriage becomes a barrier to their happiness and individual fulfillment. The sense of displacement, marital dissatisfaction, and loss and gain of identity pushes both Mary and Edna to take major decisions in order to deal with their pain and desires.