The Road Essay

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

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.

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

One thing that remains constant in the ever-changing world of Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian novel The Road is the relationship between The Man and The Boy. The father and son’s bond is extremely close, especially due to the isolation they face on The Road, but it is filled with love and endearment, like someone would expect any relationship between a father and son to be.

(E) The motif of the entire novel revolves around fire. Fire is used as a literal object as well as a

-There is a focus on storytelling as a means of healing: "It is the story of my childhood. Now I tell it to you, Xavier, to keep you alive."(35)

Many times the protagonists become the victims of the story and are eventually defeated. This is the case in Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road. The protagonist, Xavier Bird, is the victim and is eventually defeated by the powers and doings of the people that he encounters during the war, and also by the uncontrollable forces that act upon him during the course of the war. Ultimately, these two factors overpower him and lead to his emotional defeat.

Why do you think McCarthy has chosen not to give his characters names? How do the generic labels of “the man” and “the boy” affect the way you /readers relate to them?

It is remarkable how differentiated works of literature can be so similar and yet so different, just by the way the authors choose to use select certain literary devices. Two different novels, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, display these characteristics because of the ways the authors institute such mechanisms. Brave New World describes a futuristic era where humans are genetically manufactured for a certain job predestined to them before they are artificially created, and where common human emotions, desires, wants, and needs have all been modified to support a deemed utopian society where everyone lives and works together in harmony. The Road describes a post-apocalyptic

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

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.

For ages, people have been debating the idea of human morality and whether or not at its core humanity is good or bad. This philosophy is explored in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. The road is the story of a man and boy living in a post-apocalyptic world. Some cataclysmic event has crippled Earth’s natural ecosystem, leaving the skies engulfed in ash and the ground devoid of much life. The duo aim to journey south as a way to escape being frozen to death in the oncoming winter. During their journey, the boy and man come across different people and places that give them a better understand of what humanity has become and where they stand on that spectrum. Throughout The Road, McCarthy revisits the idea of being the “good guy” when there is no longer a need to, “carrying the fire” as it’s detailed in the book. The dichotomy between the boy’s moral conscience and the man’s selfish ideals helps develop McCarthy’s idea of humanity losing its selflessness in the face of danger.

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

McCarthy’s novel The Road is about man’s inherent altruism in a world of selfishness. To what extent is this true in the case of “the man”?

Jack Kerouac is considered a legend in history as one of America's best and foremost Beat Generation authors. The term "Beat" or "Beatnic" refers to the spontaneous and wandering way of life for some people during the period of postwar America, that seemed to be induced by jazz and drug-induced visions. "On the Road" was one such experience of Beatnic lifestyle through the eyes and heart of Jack Kerouac. It was a time when America was rebuilding after WW I. Describing the complexity and prosperity of the postwar society was not Karouac's original intent. However, this book described it a way everyone could visualize. It contained examples and experiences of common people looking for new and exciting