Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

The Boy exhibits many attributes that are akin to those of Charlie. In the beginning of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the Man expresses that the Boy is the reason he continues to stay alive. Like his late wife, the Man would have already committed suicide if it wasn’t for his ambition to take care of the Boy. The Man abhors this ash-covered, post-apocalyptic world so greatly, and its differences from the previous world that he believes dying is better, but cannot bring himself to murder his son so he, the Boy, doesn’t have to live a life alone. Sarah O’Rourke from Chris Cleave’s Little Bee reveals that Charlie is also a salient person in her life, a person of whom she’s very appreciative of, and without him she probably wouldn’t have been able

Not only does the Boy want to make sure that he remains a good guy, but he also wants to find more good guys in a world filled with what seems like only there are bad. Unacquainted with a world filled with good guys, the boy struggles to trust anyone, assuming they’re all bad, especially after all of the appalling things he’s seen that the bad guys have done to people like him. To the Boy, the good guys are modern day “normal” people, people who have morals. On the other hand, the bad guys are part of cannibalistic gangs, killing any outsiders for food, being it’s so scarce. This leads to the Man and Boy to having several conversations along the lines of “Are we still the good guys? he said. Yes. We’re still the good guys. And we always will be. Yes. We always will be” (77). Even with so many obstacles, the two continue to do what they consider the right thing in order to fight for their

They could even symbolize depression and anxiety, which are the causes of his father taking his own life. Being a kid, Charlie doesn’t understand this, and blames himself, or Batman for his father’s decision. By wearing his Batman costume, Charlie wants to cure the world of depression. When his dad started feeling melancholy is when he began to wear his Batman suit all of the time. Just like in The Road, Charlie also concludes that evil lies in death. Both boys fight to protect their loved ones, and their ultimate goal is to keep those around them alive.

At the end of the novel, the Boy steps out of his comfort zone after his dad’s passing and trusts a stranger. This is something he definitely wouldn’t have done if his dad was living. The Boy has been taught to trust no one. He slowly stops to worry about the bad guys because he realizes that he won’t be able to survive independently, so he accepts the help that is offered to him. Although he is very reluctant to do so, it’s his only option, so he faces the fact that there are also bad guys in the world, and he can’t control what may happen