Death and destruction are the epitome of a doomed world. Everything is destroyed and murders march the streets at night. Hell on earth is a gentle description. Cormac McCarthy's speculation of the end of the world, however, ensures that evil is not victorious. The biblical allusions Cormac McCarthy addresses in The Road illuminate a sense of hope in a bleak, empty world.
Despite a grim first impression, the repetitive imagery of ash represents hope according to symbolism found in the Bible. Ash becomes a natural setting, described throughout the whole book, with a seemingly melancholy mood. McCarthy introduces ash within the first pages: “Everything paling away into the murk. The soft ash blowing in loose swirls over the blacktop” (McCarthy 4). Normally, the connotations of ash create a dark gloomy atmosphere. McCarthy's intentional diction in this passage, however, create an opposing mood. The phrases “soft ash” and “loose swirls” create a relaxed image, allowing the ash to be interpreted in a hopeful manner. This hopefulness is enforced by the symbolism of ash in the Bible. After Adam and Eve committed the first sin, God warns them of his power, “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). First of all, this verse exemplifies the great power of God. He created the complex human body out of mere dust. In relation to The Road, the ash represents the presence of a great power. This brings hope to the father and the son, knowing that the ability to create something out of the ash exists.
Similarly, the concept of fire found throughout the novel, although serving as a representation of destruction, sheds light on the underlying theme of hope. We are led to believe, through various descriptions, that the world w...
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...” describes the world as a puzzle to be solved. The answer is not easily deciphered, but rather is a learning experience. Secondly, the “thing which could not be put back” is the customs of the old world. The images of the old world and their meanings fade away, as the world fades away itself (Schaub). These things cannot “be made right again”. The meaning of the world is not gone. It just changed (Kunsa). The world is left with a “hum of mystery”, a place full of possibility and potential. This last paragraph brings hope to the future, and promises for a better world.
Through many biblical allusions, the father and the son experience the affects of hope. Despite the destroyed world, they come together to survive the post apocalyptic world. The “good guys” bring hope for the future and for the defeat of evil. Promise and prospect will guide the new, hopeful world.
In Cormac McCarthy’s Sci-Fi novel, “The Road”, two mysterious people, a father and his curious son, contact survival of the fittest during tragic apocalyptic times. With a shopping cart of food and supplies, they excavate into the remains of tattered houses, torn buildings and other sheltering places, while averting from troublesome communes. In the duration of the novel, they’re plagued with sickness that temporarily unable them to proceed onward. Due to the inopportune events occurring before the apocalypse, the wife of the son and father committed suicide due to these anonymous survivors lurking the remains of earth. The last people on earth could be the ‘bad guys’ as the young boy describes them. In page 47, the wife reacted to this, stating, “Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They'll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won't face it. You'd rather wait for it to happen. But I can't.”
he Road, written by Cormac McCarthy was inspired by a trip he took with his young son to El Paso Texas. He was imaging what the town would look like 100 years into the future and he though of “fires on the hill” and then thought about his son's safety. McCarthy admitted to having conversations with his brother about different scenarios for the apocalypse. For example, cannibalism, “when everything is gone, the only thing left to eat is each other.” He made some notes about this vision of his, but didn't act on it until a few years later in 2006, while in Ireland. He started and finished the novel and dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.
I perceive the value of human life as invaluable. Your text enables me to envision how life would be without the comfort and security of civilization. The man’s views on life are judged by his experiences and his sole objective is to keep him and the boy alive. The father repeatedly promises himself and the boy that he would do anything for him. “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.” (pg 80).The boy returns the act of concern that the man has for him. The boy puts a large emphasis on that the man also must eat and drink ‘you to’. His compassion and willingness to help others in need brings conflict between him and his father. “Cant we help him? Papa? No. We cant help him.” (pg 51) The difference of the father’s practicability and the boy’s compassion is predominant. The text reinforces the idea that all life is sacred and important.
bright and fire is clean." (59-60). The author’s use of vivid imagery helps the reader picture
... authors conclude that it is through alienation within a small society that ultimately leads to the primary characters’ demise and death. Whether their individual cases are self imposed or externally imposed, the results and the impact are the same, annihilation of the human soul. Their craft make emphatic use of setting to the successful depiction of this theme. Both characters ultimately fall into the abyss of loneliness and despair proving that human existence cut-off and on its own is more destructive than positive . Thus their message seems to suggest that as humans, we need society in order to truly belong and have a connection, purpose and worth in this life, in order to truly live.
Fire is one example of perpetual motion. A flame is constantly moving, which is both a positive and negative commodity in the story. On one hand, we have the firemen who rely on the constant motion of a flame, to burn their history. On the other hand, we have the people who are cowering away from the fire, praying that the flame will die before consuming their books and homes. Fire is a symbol that connects many details of the story, but most importantly, it symbolizes the highs and lows of perpetual motion and what it represents for both parties.
...the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. The two brothers again can live in brotherhood and harmony.
... in which the foul air made our torches glow, rather than burn brightly”, foreshadow Fortunato’s outcome in his search for the Amontillado. The sense of foreboding the reader feels adds to the suspense of the story. By using specific figurative language, he is able to arouse emotions in the reader that set the tone.
"To Build a Fire Characters." Study Guides & Essay Editing. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. .
Through the use of recurring ideas of death, hope and reality, McCarthy conveys that there is no escape; either from the universal destruction caused by the apocalypse or the emotionally destructive effects of dreams. In The Road, dreams reveal the human nature of the characters. McCarthy illustrates the gradual dehumanization of people when life completely changes; he argues that all the terrible things that people could do have already been done, underlining the frailty of our existence. McCarthy ultimately shows us how reliant we are on the past and that we must let go of the past to make way for the future.
The structure and language used is essential in depicting the effect that the need for survival has had upon both The Man and The Boy in The Road. The novel begins in media res, meaning in the middle of things. Because the plot isn’t typically panned out, the reader is left feeling similar to the characters: weary, wondering where the end is, and what is going to happen. McCarthy ensures the language is minimalistic throughout, illustrating the bleak nature of the post-apocalyptic setting and showing the detachment that the characters have from any sort of civilisation. Vivid imagery is important in The Road, to construct a portrait in the reader's mind that is filled with hopelessness, convincing us to accept that daily survival is the only practical option. He employs effective use of indirect discourse marker, so we feel as if we are in the man’s thought. The reader is provided with such intense descriptions of the bleak landscape to offer a feeling of truly seeing the need for survival both The Man and The Boy have. The reader feels no sense of closu...
It will later be a major theme in the book. On the mountain, fire is created,
In the Novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, survival becomes the biggest quest to life. The novel is set to be as a scene of isolation and banishment from people and places. The author uses the hidden woods as a set of isolation for the characters, in which creates the suspense of traveling to an unspecified destination near the shore. Cormac McCarthy creates a novel on the depth of an imaginative journey, which leads to a road of intensity and despair. The journey to move forward in an apocalyptic world transforms both of the main characters father and son tremendously as time progress. In particular, the boys’ isolation takes him from hope to torment, making him become fearful and imaginative. The images indicate that McCarthy’s post apocalyptic novel relies on images, particular verbal choices, and truthful evidence to how isolation affected the son emotionally and physically.
“Hope.” Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, online. Internet. http://www.oxfordreference.com, accessed January 15, 2014.
...ze anything other than the awful finality of despair. The sense of healing and salvation at the end of The Waste Land indicates that there is hope for meaning, even in fractured worlds and obfuscated poems. But it is up to each of us to discover it.