Cormac Mccarthy's post-apocalyptic thriller, The Road, tells the story of an unnamed man and his son in a desperate struggle for survival as they travel across the country in search of salvation. The author makes use of symbols to develop the theme that while maintaining hope under strenuous circumstances may help affirm morals, not having a source of hope can lead to the abandonment of basic humanity. The theme is significantly developed through the symbol of the Coca Cola can. The man and his son find themselves growing increasingly desperate for food, forcing them to contemplate sacrificing moral values for the sake of survival. With its discovery, the can becomes a source of hope for the pair as it reminds the man of the old world and reinstills …show more content…
their desire to be civil. Symbols are more effectively used to develop the theme through the titular symbol, the road. As their journey progresses, the road becomes a driving force and gives the man and his son hope. The savages they encounter have, without hope, given up on humanity in favor of survival. The ability of hope to drive one’s humanity is most compellingly demonstrated through the symbol that is the ever-present fire. The characters refer to themselves as “carrying the fire”(Mccarthy 42). This idea gives them hope as they wish to survive but only if they are able to maintain their humanity. Fire is also shown to be utterly destructive, in the wrong hands, showing the extreme effects that a loss of hope can have on humans and the actions some will take in the name of survival. Each of these symbols develops the theme that, in extreme circumstances, hope will determine whether one will resort to inhumane methods to survive or adhere to their morals. The theme is significantly developed through the inclusion of the symbol that is the coca cola can. As the man and his son travel, they do not have a consistent source of food and must rely on what they can scavenge. Leading up to their discovery of the can, the man and the boy have found themselves unable to scavenge any food and growing increasingly desperate for sustenance. This desperation and lack of hope due continually shrinking food reserves forces the man and his boy to make decisions that sacrifice their morals and their humanity for the sake of survival, albeit not to nearly the same extents as the cannibalistic barbarians whom they encounter throughout the book. Upon finding the can, the man is instantly reminded of the world before this disaster occurred, and his old life. Throughout its history, the coca cola brand has established itself as a beverage to make people feel good and bring them together; it is these feelings that are elicited from the man as he uncovers the classic red can. The man offers the can to his son, selflessly opting to allow the boy to enjoy it rather than drink it himself in the following quotation: He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It's really good, he said. Yes. It is. You have some, Papa. I want you to drink it. (Mccarthy 12) This interaction shows the boy’s enjoyment of the treat and also the love of the man has for his son to let him drink it all. The can ultimately acts as a source of hope for the man and the boy, giving them hopeful feelings and a nourishment, even if only a small amount. Later in the story, upon the discovery of an underground survival shelter containing massive supplies of food, the coca cola symbol makes another appearance. Among the stores of food were some cans of coca cola, once again offering the pair, on the verge of starvation, a source of hope in stressful times. Despite the drab, desperate landscape of the post-apocalyptic world of The Road, the iconic red coca cola can shows how hope can drive one’s ability to maintain humanity. Mccarthy more significantly develops the theme through the use of symbolism via the symbol of the road.
The journey upon which the man and the boy have set out is treacherous and they have no way of knowing if they are going in the right direction. Although they set their sights southward, they can only hope that the south truly does hold a brighter future for them than their current situation. It is possible the someone of weaker morals or without the power of will that the man and the boy posses would not have the faith to continue. For the man and the boy, the road represents their hope in their goal, that there is a better future for them. The man shows his son the map that they are following: “We follow the road here along the eastern slope of the mountains. These are our roads, the black lines on the map. The state roads.”(Mccarthy 22). In this quote, the man explains to his son how they are following the road. They are not simply physically following the road, but spiritually following it as well. In addition to the man and the boy’s eternal hope, the road exists as one of the few constant objects in their world of threats and hunger. Even if they ever have any doubt in their quest, they can rely on the road, which sits as a singular, endless piece of asphalt pointing them in the right direction. The road does not only lead the pair towards their goal, it also leads them towards danger. All of the conflict which the main characters encounter, they encounter on the …show more content…
road. For those survivors who do not possess the same hope as the man and the boy, survival means doing anything necessary, including but limited to murder, cannibalism and, robbery. To these individuals, the road does not represent hope as it does to the man and his son but it instead simply represents a means of transport and a place to lay traps for unwitting victims. One such instance occurs when a few men ambush the man and the boy as the two enter a town: “Late the day following they entered a small town where three men stepped from behind a truck and stood in the road before them. Emaciated, clothed in rags. Holding lengths of pipe.” (Mccarthy 31). Armed with a gun, the man and the boy held the upper hand in this situation but instead of taking their possessions or killing the men, they opted to pass through peacefully despite the men having attacked them and the fact the men would have most certainly robbed or killed them had they not had a gun. Depending on whether one has and maintains hope, the road can symbolize either their ability to maintain civility and moral fortitude or the cruel and destructive potential of humanity. The theme is most powerfully developed through symbolism with fire. Fire makes many appearances with the text. In many instances, fire supports the main characters and helps keep them alive when it is used to prepare food or to keep the pair warm. “They fried [ham] that night over their fire, thick slices of it, and put the slices to simmer with a tin of beans.” (Mccarthy 9) In this line, they use the fire to cook their food and in this way, the fire provides a source of sustenance and plays a role as somewhat of a protector or a guardian against the cold and hunger. The boy is constantly concerned about whether or not they are still the “good guys” (Mccarthy 39). His father reassures him by telling that they are “carrying the fire”. The boy asks the father: Because we're the good guys? Yes. And we're carrying the fire? And we're carrying the fire. Yes. (Mccarthy 66) The father uses the idea of carrying the fire to represent the fact that they have maintained their civilized ways in such an uncivilized world. They act as though it is their charge to protect the ‘fire’ which they are carrying and make it their goal to preserve the possibility of humanity when, for all they know, they are the last sources of humanity remaining. The very idea of one choosing to abide by their morals even amidst the most perilous of times is honorable. The fact that the man and the boy have hope that they may be able to preserve the concept of civility for future generations or civilizations is only further reinforcement for their quest and demonstrates the ability of their hope to motivate them on their journey and their commitment to maintaining their composure. While to the man and the boy, fire represents the hope they have for their future, fire in The Road also represents the much darker and more destructive side of humanity that can arise in a world without hope. Readers are always exposed to the destructive power of fire through the forest fires that always seem to be burning, cutting down forests in an instant or the roads littered with the bodies of those who could not outrun the fires that swept the towns and cities. The true, horrifying abilities of fire are only exposed, however, through the actions of human beings. The organized gangs of savages that travel the roads often carry torches and fire themselves. While the man and the boy treat the idea of carrying the fire as a source of hope, these marauders use fire to instill fear in others. Void of any hope for the future, these individuals do not see the ability for fire to sustain and support, they see only its potential to be used as a weapon or to gain power and dominance. The most disturbing instance of fire as a symbol occurs as the man and the boy follow a group of survivors who they believe may be friendly as they have a young child with them. The man and the boy enter their camp only to find “a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit” (Mccarthy 103). This quote shows the brutal power of fire to be used as an implement to kill one’s own child. This example shows the most extreme consequences that can arise when humans find themselves in a situation of extreme desperation, such as being utterly without food, and without any hope. The man shows his willingness to sacrifice his own life for that of his boy, but without hope, Mccarthy shows how a parent could easily sacrifice their own child to ensure their own survival, an act of the utmost desperation and utmost inhumanity. Through the efficacious utilization of symbolism, the author develops the theme that in times of unprecedented hardship having and maintaining hope can enable one to adhere to their moral values and ensure civility while lacking such hope can lead to desperation and the adoption of inhumane behavior in order to overcome difficulty.
This theme is strongly developed through a can of coca cola that appears at multiple points throughout the text. The coca cola shows the hope that the man and the boy have and reminds them of better times but it also represents just how quickly the man and the boy could lose what hope they had when running out of food and embrace the darker side of their nature to survive. The symbol of the road is more poignantly used to develop the theme throughout the book. The road is used as a symbol that acts a compass to the man and the boy, always pointing them where to go. In this way, the road gives the main characters ambition and will to push on. The road also represents the darker aspects of the world in the story, however, the road is home to many individuals who have grown too desperate for civility and have resorted to violence to survive. The most powerful development of the theme is done through the theme of fire. The man and the boy refer to the fire as something they carry with them that ensures that they are the good guy and will ensure their morality. The fire is also used by many other characters to enable murder and destruction, which
reveals the way in which fire can be used for evil if its wielder has given up on morality. Through these symbols, Mccarthy shows just how fragile human morality is and why many are so quick to resort to violence when facing the slightest of hardship. Works Cited: McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.
It’s the year 2028, and the world we used to know as bright and beautiful is no longer thriving with light. A disease similar to the plague broke out and caused great havoc. Although it may seem like forever ago, sickness spread only a few years ago. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a man and his son who fortunately survived this sickness; although they made it, the struggle to keep going is tough. Before most of the population became deceased, people went insane. They started to bomb houses, burn down businesses and towns, and destroy the environment. Anyone who had the disease was bad blood. Many saw it as the end of the world, which in many cases was true.
Readers develop a compassionate emotion toward the characters, although the characters are detached and impersonal, due to the tone of The Road. The characters are unidentified, generalizing the experience and making it relatable – meaning similar instances can happen to anyone, not just the characters in the novel. McCarthy combined the brutality of the post-apocalyptic world with tender love between father and son through tone.
In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the boy and his father carry the fire within themselves. This image of fire is the true nature of their courage to continue on the road to the unknown.
The conflict through the duration of The Road has been survival. The man has always known he was going to die, but the man never gave up because he had to keep his son alive. In this final section of the novel, the man finally accepts that he is going to die. After being shot with an arrow the man’s health rapidly deteriorates even more than it has. The father and son switch rolls in this final section of the book. The boy starts caring for his father as he approaches death. Now the boy’s main concern is his father’s health. This transaction of responsibility shows that the boy has grown and become more mature. McCarthy’s use of foreshadowing the man’s death built up throughout the book, and it made the audience believe that the man would finally die of his mysterious sickness.
Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is set sometime in the future after a global disaster in which tells a story of a nameless boy and father who both travel along a highway that stretches to the East coast. This post-apocalyptic novel shows the exposes of terrifying events such as cannibalism, starvation, and not surviving portraying the powerful act of the man protecting his son from all the events in which depicts Cormac McCarthy’s powerful theme of one person sacrificing or doing anything humanly possible for the one they love which generates the power of love.
This story contains an almost equal balance of good and evil, though it also raises questions of what is truly good. It blurs the line between good and selfish or thoughtless. Characters’ actions sometimes appear impure, but in the long run, are good.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a father and son who are surrounded by an apocalyptic world where they are trying to survive. Many of McCarthy’s books are about negative or violent times like Blood Meridian and All The Pretty Horses. McCarthy enjoys writing about the terror in the real world. When writing literature, he avoids using commas and quotation marks.. Many works of literature have a plethora of themes throughout them, in The Road, the theme that sticks out the most is paternal love. The boy is the only thing that stands between the man and death. Aside from that, the father doesn’t kill anyone for food, he only takes the life of people who threaten the boy. Lastly, the man allows the boy have the last of their supplies, food,
It is often said that a dog is a man’s best friend. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Crossing, a deep affection and fondness are established between man and animal. In a particular excerpt from the novel, Cormac illustrates the protagonist’s sorrow that was prompted from the wolf’s tragic death. As blood stiffens his trousers, the main character seeks to overcome the cold weather and fatigue with hopes of finding the perfect burial site for the wolf. McCarthy uses detailed descriptions and terminology in his novel, The Crossing, to convey the impact of the wolf’s death on the protagonist, a sad experience incorporated with religious allusions and made unique by the main character’s point of view.
The Road, a post-apocalyptic, survival skills fiction book written by Cormac McCarthy and published in 2006 is part of the Oprah Winfrey book club. During an interview with Oprah, McCarthy answered questions about The Road that he had never been asked before because pervious to the interview he had never been interviewed. Oprah asked what inspired the heart breaking book; it turns out that McCarthy wrote the book after taking a vacation with his son John. While on the vacation he imagined the world fifty years later and seen fire in the distant hills. After the book was finished, McCarthy dedicated it to his son, John. Throughout the book McCarthy included things that he knows he and his son would do and conversations that he thinks they may have had. (Cormac). Some question if the book is worth reading for college course writing classes because of the amount of common writing “rule breaks”. After reading and doing assignments to go along with The Road, I strongly believe that the novel should be required for more college courses such as Writing and Rhetoric II. McCarthy wrote the book in a way to force readers to get out of their comfort zones; the book has a great storyline; so doing the assignments are fairly easy, and embedded in the book are several brilliant survival tactics.
To be more honest though, On the Road is a novel in which Sal, and the people with whom he surrounds himself, find themselves steeped into a near constant cycle of enthusiastic optimism for the future, which is then followed by a disparaging pessimism for the situation’s reality. While Sal might note that he desires the freedom and happiness of the open road, Ann Douglas says that "this is the saddest book that I’ve ever read" (Douglas, 9). While Sal attempts to show an exuberant and triumphant story of youthful optimism, critics and the actual events of the novel alike seem to point towards the fact that this same optimism turns the novel into a pessimistic story showing the actualities of life. Sal’s optimism can be defined by hopeful, often unrealistic, ambitions for the future. Without any real knowledge of what they will encounter, since the road often lands them in cities and towns where they have never been, the characters almost exclusively hope for the best, think everything will work out just fine – never considering the clear possibilities for disappointment.
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...
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.”
I have conflicting thought regarding Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. My initial thoughts of the novel were that it was solely built on the complete devastation of two characters lives and the surrounding landscape and their constant search for survival. However after giving it further insight I discovered the underlying messages of the importance of good and bad people in my life, the beauty of the little things in life and constant greed showed by desperate individuals. I believe the novels successes comes from the messages of the significant value of human life and the importance of memories in our lives.
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.
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.