The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

Cormac McCarthy, in his seventh novel, delves into the realm of a post-apocalyptic era in which a father and son journey to survive. McCarthy is known for his dark writing style and vivid imagery in his writings. He uses these to develop the characters and the themes of his novels. In his bestselling novel The Road, McCarthy uses this imagery and dark writing style to develop the characters of the father and son, their struggle to survive, and the themes of morality, isolation, and love.

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.

In Cormac McCarthy’s the road, the author conveys that although there can be despair and bloodshed in the world, love overcomes al l with a little faith. The man views the boy as a symbol for hope and provides the man with game a purpose in life, to protect the boy above all. Violence is the antagonist in the novel because the people are driven into thievery, murder, and cannibalism because of the post-apocalyptic landscape. Food is scarce and people are starving, and consequently, people turn to thievery as a way to fend for themselves. At this point in time, stealing is not a crime anymore. There is no government, there are no regulations, and all is fair. When the man says that he will protect the boy at any cost, it is not an understatement. When a member of a blood cult posed a threat to the boy, the man did not so much as fidget to reach the safety of his weapon. Without overthinking, the man shot the degenerated dead before his son. The aftermath resulted in the man soothing the boy by claiming that his job is to take care of him and that he was “appointed to do that by god.” And even states he would, “kill anyone who touches the boy” (77). He tells the boy that even if they had killed someone it would not be a

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 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

Isolation is one of the most severe forms of punishment that anyone could be faced with. Cormac McCarthy shows the reaction isolation had on the characters in The Road. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, follows an unnamed father and son as they travel towards the coast in search of safety after the world has been destroyed by a catastrophe. As they travel the road, the father has to protect his son from the threat of strangers, starvation, exposure and harsh weather. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy shows how humans react to isolation by when the man leaves others to suffer, taking drastic measures and when the man kills other men.

The landscape of a post-apocalyptic society contains nothing to live for, it is a world without the people you love, without sun, flowers or food; only lawlessness, fear and uncertainty of survival. McCarthy creates a post apocalyptic world in his book, “The Road,” that addresses the issues of our time by illustrating the fears of society and the violence that accompanies them. These fears at the time were most recently initiated by the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq war and the resulting violence experienced both in America and around the world. McCarthy’s “The Road” is a worst-case scenario, in which the broad American view that we are invincible and our principles are infallible is challenged. And with the violence in today’s

The language of “the Road” By McCarthy is scant yet poetic and morally inspiring. The text is composed not of chapters but of discrete, punctuated paragraphs that mirror the movements of the father and son on their journey. McCarthy's writing style reflects sparseness in that he chooses to write in fragments and he keeps the father's and son's dialogue very choppy. Authors style of narrating this story is very scrappy and sparse, which describes the infertile and miserable land through which the man and boy are traveling. In the book we noticed, McCarthy makes less use of quotation and apostrophes. There are no brakes through dialogues. Because this is a post-apocalyptic story, the exception of these punctuation basics might help as a way of author to show that in this new world, fragments of the old world such as materialistic objects and humanity exists in scarce amount. McCarthy’s narrative voice is powerful and completely shapes the stories he tells. The story begins with the man and boy making their journey along the road. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world, date and place are unnamed. One can assume it is somewhere in America, most of the South, because the man tells the boy that they're walking the "state roads"(43). Neither the man nor the boy is given a

Violence is defined as a behavior involving physical or mental force intending to hurt, damage, or kill someone. In the words of Zak Ibrahim, peace is defined as the proliferation or the increase in the existence of Justice. But where does love fit in to these conversations? Violence cannot necessarily transform into love, but the presence of it is surely important. Violence involving our most loved ones, helps us find love and compassion in the toughest of situations, and leads us toward paths of peace. In this essay, examples will be drawn from Zak Ibrahim 's keynote presentation, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Beautiful Boy; a film directed by Shawn Ku, and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

The intentions of actions help decide whether it is morally good or evil. The man has many more blurred moral situations than the boy throughout the novel. One example of this is when he kills the “roadrat”(35), out of self-defense for his son. The man assures the boy “[they] are still the good guys”(39) even after he killed the man, because his initial intent was not to harm him. McCarthy demonstrates the idea that good gets evil and evil gets evil with the outcome of the “roadrat”. He refuses not to harm the boy and man and therefore gets killed. Although this exact situation is not the basis of the norm morality in modern society, it still helps demonstrate the triumph of good. In a regular world this intention of good can be applied to simple things, such as; a small lie in order to protect others. The novel helps demonstrate principles by using the extremes. In an apocalyptic

Civilization is the basis of life, driving human interaction in everyday life. The texts, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, depict civilized and uncivilized situations, which reflect on and elaborate characterization. This can be seen explicitly with the creature (Frankenstein) and the boy (The Road). Both novels address the civilized and uncivilized in different approaches, however similarly emphasize the significance of the character’s traits and development. The ways that each character approaches civilized and uncivilized situations and behaviours, relate to the character’s experiences and emotions directly in the case of the creature, contrary to the inverse relationship in the case of the boy. The

The boy who travels with his father finds purpose to survive in believing that they will one day find the good guys. In this he believes that they themselves carry the torch of being the good guys and finds hope in that. Throughout the novel, the boy expresses his heart for helping others several times when he gives an old scraggly man on the road a can of peaches, pleading to help a man who got struck by lightning, and by being worried about a boy who was alone they had passed on the road. The boy evidently through his actions expresses a need to help others. When the boy spotted another little boy from the road, he ran over to where he had seen him and searched for him. When the Father saw that the boy ran off, he grabbed the boy by the arm and said “‘Come on. There’s no one to see. Do you want to die? Is that what you want?’” Sobbing, the boy replied, “I don’t care, I don’t care” (85). The boy sees the little boy as alone with nothing and he feels like it is his responsibility to his own

“The Road” depicts a solemn and deteriorating environment that can no longer provide the fundamentals to a society due to the nuclear disaster. The sudden depletion of the resources within their environment made it difficult for the father and the son to find sustenance. They were constantly traveling towards the South looking for safe places to situate themselves because the father knew that they would not be able to survive the nuclear winter. The genre of the novel is post-apocalyptic science fiction because it revolves around a dismantling society. Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” depicts how environmental destruction finally gave sense for people to value the world and what it had to offer.

As society members, we should applaud the efforts of individuals who attempt to succeed in times of hardships. However, we need to categorize them by the way in which they achieve these successes and not solely on the results. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, A father and son are on a quest for survival after a catastrophic event wiped out most of the population and turned the land to ash. While struggling to survive in such a desecrate landscape, the father walks a fine line amongst the morals of a good guy vs a bad guy and often finds himself in precarious situations that test the moral codes of his good guy persona. By using the father’s willingness to use violence as a first resort, McCarthy argues that morals often change when faced with high leverage situations and as a result, the so called “good guys,” can no longer be identified as reliable sources when determining right from wrong.

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, a man and his son live in a somber post-apocalyptic world. Although it’s not clear what brought the world to this point, the novel paints a clear picture of the aftermath. The boy and his father spend their days traveling through the dark and cold landscape while trying to make their way south, which they hope will bring warmer weather and easier times. Throughout their dreadful journey, the pair deal with many terrible and heart wrenching situations that seem unbearable; but each time, the man and the boy push through by keeping their faith in hopes of having a better life. But holding on to hope in what seems to be a hopeless world proves to be difficult as they face issues such as cannibalism, a lack of food, and blistering cold weather. In the New York Times Review “The Road Through Hell, Paved With Desperation”, writer Janet Maslin uses language similar to McCarthy’s to emphasis the tone of the novel, and she also brings attention to the faith that the man holds despite going through events that should make him question it. But the sole reason the man holds onto his faith is because of his son, which drives him to keep from doubting not only his faith, but himself. By highlighting faith and doubt throughout the novel, The Road shows that even though some people may have everything taken away from them, it’s better to keep a strong faith than to give up all hope whatsoever;