The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

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.

Cormac McCarthy’s brain child “The Road” is a postapocalyptic novel that illustrates the harsh reality of the world. This story serves as a truth that humans, when stripped of their humanity will take desperate measures in order to survive. The reader learns; however even when it seems all hope is lost good can still be found in the world. The son character of this story illuminates this philosophy. He is a foil of his father and shows how even a person never accustomed to the luxury of a normal life can still see goodness.

A man and his son travelling alone amidst the ruins of a previously prosperous nation; a young man venturing into a treacherous land to tie up the loose ends in his life; a broken ranch hand that suspects he had a conversation with death: in the most desolate and uncertain environments, the surrounding world can lend a bleak and lifeless perspective to one’s struggle to survive. In lands without accompaniment from other humans, the will to live can be as difficult to muster as shelter for the night or the first meal in days. Cormac McCarthy explores the difficulties of survival under the tension of barren landscapes and youthful inexperience and their effects on the loss of innocence. Gained maturity enables humans to persist and stay hopeful, even in the least hopeful situations. These environments and mindsets play an important role in the messages of three novels by Cormac McCarthy: The Road, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain.

The road written by Cormac Mccarthy; one of the most praised contemporary novels. The road tells the story of a man and a boy traveling in a post apocalyptic world. “Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world”(Mccarthy1). The world is now filled with ash and inhabited by cannibals and bandits. The boy and man’s goal is to get to the south as they think it’ll be warmer there. The novel’s grammer is abstract as they’re barely any periods written as they talk. This style is used to make the reader pay attention as one can easily lose who’s talking. One of the biggest themes in the novel is the fire in all to live and stay alive; Survival. Cormac Mccarthy’s biggest critique on this novel was that the ending was too hopeful and positive, opposed to Mccarthy and the entire style of the book. The book is entirely filled with grave feelings pondering suicide and a feeling of nothing ever getting better. In the end the man dies but the boy is picked up by another man and women who seem nice. People 's opinion of the Road differ within the last pages. Though the ending might seem hopeful, it has two different interpretations, and Cormac has shown that he’s not a happy ending kind of guy.

In each novel of his personal literary journey, Cormac McCarthy examines death and God in different ways. Edwin T. Arnold, who wrote his essay “Blood and Grace: The Fiction of Cormac McCarthy” before The Road, examines how “McCarthy’s protagonists are most often those who, in their travels, are bereft of the voice of God and yet yearn to hear him speak” (14). In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the father explicitly describes his son as god; however, by juxtaposing the father and the son and examining their divine resemblances, it is not the boy but the man who embodies God, supporting Ely’s claim that this post-apocalyptic world is too harsh for God to exist.

Hope and humanity are two very important aspects of human nature and without it, life would be very catastrophic to mankind. Cormac McCarthy is the author of The Road. The Road is a dystopian story of an adventure of a father and his young child over a period of several months, over a scene impacted by an unspecified disaster that has demolished a large portion of human advancement and, in the mediating years, all life on Earth. The Road, is plagued by absence such as an absent hope and absent humanity. These absences reveal that without hope and humanity people can’t survive. Cormac McCarthy argues that without hope and humanity, humans can't continue to survive because when people lose hope, they lose their ability to dream for the future and humanity as a universal emotion, people must it have in order to survive for a long time.

In Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” the fire is an allegory for purity, hope, humanity, and the drive to survive without turning into the malicious monsters that the people around them have become. The father is very hopeful and convinced that “nothing bad will happen to them because we’re carrying the fire”(83). He also convinces his son that the fire isn't around them but is “inside of you. It is always there. I can see it”(234).

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road portrays a gripping tale of survival of a father and son across a post-apocalyptic world that is devoured by marauders and cannibals who have abandoned all of their beliefs, morals and values and do anything to survive. In contrast, the two protagonists are portrayed as the ‘good guys’ who carry the ‘fire’, and try to survive in the obliterated world. They are challenged to maintain their own beliefs, morals and values as they enter their quest. As a young adolescent who has witnessed the harsh environments of a war torn country such as Afghanistan, and has prior experiences of being a refugee. The novel effectively

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.

Throughout the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy repetitively uses symbolism to portray several deeper themes throughout the novel. One theme of the symbolism that is mentioned many times in The Road is the fire. A significant occurrence of this is when the man is discussing the fire with the boy. '' 'Is the fire real? I don`t know where it.' 'Yes you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it' "(McCarthy 279).The fire represents the hope for humanity, and the man sees the fire inside the boy. The boy shows compassion for everything, alive or dead. Not only does the fire symbolize the hope for humanity but it represents strength and the will to live. During the novel fires are lit to keep The Man and Boy safe and warm but the fire keeps them alive even in the heart of the storm.

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 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.

In all cultures, there are people struggling for survival. Some are starving, some are living in sheer poverty, some are thrown into slavery and some just cannot get their footing; but in all of these situations there seems to be a common theme that presents itself over and over again. Many of these people become so desperate to live they will give up their morals and give in to whatever they can to get by. Occasionally, there is one person stronger than the rest, one able to hold onto their morals, one that would rather die than give in to immorality. However, given certain circumstances; even these people turn to pure barbarianism in order to survive. The Pulitzer Award-Winning novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, details the numerous

The Road is a story where is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the date and location is unnamed. The author of the novel Cormac McCarthy doesn 't describe why or how the disaster has demolish the earth. But after reading the novel, I can sense that the author wanted to present a case of mystery and fear to the unknown to the reader. By the author 's exclusion I think that the story gains a better understanding of what the author wanted to express to the reader. An expression of a man and his son surviving in a post-apocalyptic setting.

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.