In McCarthy’s The Road, love survives through the violence in the world. None of the characters have names, They go by the man, the boy, and the bad. It is a father and son traveling alone to the coast. They do not know where they are going but are hopeful to reach a warm climate as the earth slowly gets colder and colder. They have to fight to stay alive as bad from the bad, who try to steal their things and kill them. The man fights to stay alive for the boy, the love for the boy keeps the man alive. The boy fights to keep the love alive in the world. He tries his best to love everyone. Knowing that violence will never win if love can survive. Violence will die out if the power of love can survive violence. McCarthy was born in Providence, …show more content…
The old man who looks like a pile of rags fallen off a cart (McCarthy 163). The old man lies about his age for the hopefulness that people will leave him alone and not hurt them (McCarthy 167). He is so afraid of dying that he not only lies about his age to protect himself, but also lies about his name. He does not trust people with his name or anything that he owns (McCarthy 172). He does not weigh more than hundred pounds (mcCarthy 165), he has not eaten in ages. He takes the boys love that he is given and eats good and stays warm through the night. He stays for he has not seen a fire in a long time and has not been warm for a long time. He starts to like the boy because he never thought that he would see a child ever again and hopes to see more of them. He will do anything to survive this ruined world. For every hardship and survival throughout the book there is a beautiful love story that goes one. Throughout the story love can been seen between the father and the son. The love they have is huge and it seems as if it can not be broken. Even if they fight and the boy cries and refuses to talk to the man, it is still a love story because the man does everything to protect the boy. The boy does not understand because his love for others is so great he does not get that others are not as good as they are. His love is great enough to change the world and the man’s love is great enough to keep the boy’s 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.
The father does not comply with his son and leaves the naked man alone in the cold. This further shows the differences between the boy and his father. The final contrast between the two is exemplified with the ending. Throughout the book the reader is allowed to assume that if the son dies in the novel then the father would consequently commit suicide. At the end of the story when the father dies first the boy stays strong and decides to blindly follow other survivors and put his faith in them. Throughout, the story; however the father doesn't put any trust into anyone. His son, being a foil of him decides to put his faith into other survivors and takes a leap of faith and follow them their camp. This instance further shows the stark difference between the father and the son.
Conflict was used effectively in the short story to reveal the theme of the story. The boy has an internal conflict about which parent to stay with, and because his father left, he seemed to have favored him. He wanted him back so badly that every night, he watches him on the six o’clock news while wearing his old jackets. He was blinded by his father’s sudden departure that he forgot about what is really important. Additionally, another development in the short story’s conflict has been used effectively to reveal the theme. When the boy went to Macdonald’s to see his father’s true colors, he thought: “I finished my drink quickly, thankful that he had to be back in the studio for the news.” By the time he saw his dad for the first time in a while, he knew he was not the man he thought he was. At that moment, he also realized that he lost sight of what he had all this time: His mother’s unconditional love. If it wasn’t for the characterization of
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.
Several things that happen in this book are a result of what the father and son do in their relationships for
The son however is the ‘faith’ within the story. He is the hope for a better future. The son is more trusting towards others and therefore becomes upset and quiet when his father doesn’t agree with him. “I’m afraid for that little boy” – The son has never seen another young boy and is frightened for him but his father shrugs off his pleas to help him and says “I know but he’ll be alright”. Towards the end of the book it appears that the father and his son become distant to each other due to their diverse personalities. It could however be seen that the son is a lot more knowledgeable about dangers and therefore does not need his father as much.
They’re always about something bad happening” (McCarthy 269). So by this statement, we know that the boy while empathetic, still feels negative emotions for himself. We feel as if the boy is what keeps the book going, the fire; he is the only one who can and will keep the story going because he is seen as something greater than all. After the father dies, we see that the boy finds a group of wanderers and joins them.
He tells him about the fire he enjoys, his search for food, running into people that are scared of him and shun him away, and how he finally finds a small place to stay and watches a family from a crack within one of the walls.
The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a masterpiece that captures the journey of a young boy and his father trucking across America. Through the hardships that they fall upon, the young boy and father make their way to the place they had been yearning for, the ‘South’. The relationship between the father and son is their ultimate quest to find purpose and meaning to their lives through the trust that they share. Each rely on one another is different ways, which further shows how their relationship fluctuates throughout the book. Through their encounters, pleading for help for other, and coming to realization of the truth, The Road captures the relationship of the boy and his father throughout their journey.
McCarthy’s novel, Blood Meridian, is an interesting story about a boy who grows up in the chaos of the world, but unlike most authors, McCarthy, creates a more complete image of humanity. McCarthy includes violence and barbarism as a natural part of who we are as humans. The protagonist, the kid, grew up with a father who was a drunken teacher who did not care for him or teach him how to read or write. The kid was not taken care of, wasn’t shown love, and wasn’t given love; therefore he did not know how to care or what being taken care of was. In the very first pages of the novel, McCarthy constructs a violent image of the kid by stating, “… in him broods already a taste for violence” (McCarthy 3). McCarthy uses this quote as a starting point
For example, he has a loving family who would always be there to support him. In conclusion, the conflicts in the story, person versus society and person versus self, show the need to be optimistic during tough times.
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.
In order for a child to live in a complete and happy family, the paternal love plays a major role in a child’s life, especially the love of a father which is as much important as a mother’s love. Moreover, a father’s love is one of the greatest influences on the child’s personality development throughout his/her life. A father’s love brings a sense of protection of security in a child. In the novel The Road, Cormac McCarthy present the great example of paternal love. The novel deals with a post-apocalyptic story about an unnamed man and his unnamed child as they move toward the south to find a better place to live after the catastrophic event. The son is the only reason for the father
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.
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.