The Search For Justice In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

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 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.

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.

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

In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the son does not display any selfish thoughts throughout his travels with his father, but rather the contrary. At the beginning of the novel, the son runs toward a little boy standing alone in hopes to help him, though he is scolded by his father. As the father and son continue on their trek, the boy does not seem to stop mentioning the little boy, “What about the little boy, he sobbed. What about the little boy?," (McCarthy 86). Despite his father’s disapproval, the son pleads that they should accompany the little boy and bring him along their journey. He fears the for the little boy’s survival since he believes the little boy to be alone without a “papa”. The son offers to split his food rations to accommodate the little boy, even though he is well aware of the scarce food supply him and his father encompass. Along with the encounter with the little boy, the son again displays his generosity and concern with an old man named Ely, “The boy took the tin and handed it to the old man. Take it, he whispered. Here," (McCarthy 163). As the boy watches the old man eat, he turns to his father to ask the same question: can we keep him? and once again the father opposes the idea. Also in

The Road by Cormac McCarthy details a post-apocalyptic world with mysterious origins. While there are many questions about this world, the reader is left to their own imagination to determine how it got that way. Within this world, there is a man and a boy, father and son trying to make their way and survive until they can find a safe haven that may or may not exist. The see many things along the way and the man instills in the boy that it is important to remain a good guy and always “carry the fire”. Carrying the fire refers to the light inside of you that makes you who you are and may also carry the “goodness” of human nature. Inevitably, the man meets his fate via a mysterious illness leaving the boy on his own. The boy is then introduced to a family that has been following them knowing that the man was not well and the boy would need someone to look after him.

The novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy was published on September 26, 2006. The Road depicts the struggle for survival between a father and a son. In the gray and ash covered world, featureless, and bleak, all that remains is a corrupted world where destruction will bestow upon anyone who comes in its wake. Nevertheless, in a post-apocalyptic world, devastation isn’t the only adversity they have to withstand, rather, the position it puts the human race. The lack of food caused many survivors become cannibals and roam the roads looking for victims. However, hope played a significant role in their journey of obtaining survival. The father and son were seen continuously encouraging and reminding one another to keep faith alive by carrying the “fire” in their hearts. Cormac McCarthy implies in his novel, The Road that the boy is seen as the man’s only will to live and his son’s divine spirit that inspired him to be good-hearted, which proves that people can survive through anything, as long as they have something worth fighting for.

In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life “is a search for justice.” In

Every author creates some type of conflict to have the reader sitting on the edge of their seats whether the conflict be man versus man, man versus self, or man versus nature. The novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy wrote a story about both a man and a boy who have particularly conflicting characteristics when it comes to decision making. The boy in the story is very optimistic about everything and the man can be pessimistic when either deciding on what to do or when thinking about life or the future. In addition, both characters have different outlooks and personalities that can sometimes collide.

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.

In his novel The Road Cormac McCarthy uses a post-apocalyptic setting to help broaden the debate over moral good and evil. Not only do the main characters in his novel display either good or evil in their actions, but so do the people they encounter on their journey. These encounters are shaped by the moral decisions each individual makes. In this novel’s setting it is hard to define good and evil, but the choices made can still be applied to a non-apocalyptic world. McCarthy uses the experiences of the main characters to demonstrate that no matter what the scenario good will overcome evil.

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.

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

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.