Responsibility In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, follows the journey of a father and a son who are faced with the struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The two main characters are faced with endeavors that test a core characteristic of their beings: their responsibilities to themselves and to the world around them. This responsibility drives every action between the characters of the novel and manifests in many different ways. Responsibility is shown through three key interactions: the man to the boy, the boy to the man, and the boy to the rest of the world. It is this responsibility that separates McCarthy’s book from those of the same genre. The man believes his purpose is to guide the boy to safety and to protect his child. He makes his decisions solely based upon the boy’s needs and security rather than his own. One may say his responsibility to the boy is slightly demented by the man’s constant feud with himself regarding the possibility of killing his son to save the boy from pain. However, this only strengthens the point by showing the man is willing to do anything to allow his son to have opportunities with the best outcome, even if that outcome is death. Decisions such as this are nearly inevitable in a world portrayed by McCarthy,

The boy comprehends the severity of the situations he is faced with, such as lack of food or water, and treats his father with the same respect and equality that the man gives him. He insists on sharing his portions with his father when they are uneven, and he remains cautious at all times, even when his father is not. The boy’s fire is fueled by his love for his father, which is shown by the boy’s priority on caring for his father’s wellbeing, just as the man does for him. This love and responsibility, manifesting in the form of self-sacrifice and compassion, lies in direct juxtaposition to the rest of the world, where selfishness and indifference reigns