Faith And Spirituality In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

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“Does belief in God influence decisions?” This question and many others are asked by countless readers after experiencing what is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. This thrilling post-apocalyptic novel follows the journey of a nameless father and son traveling down a long road after what can only be described as the end of the world as we know it. It centers around their fight for survival and their quest to find somewhere in this new world that’s safe. In the background of the gritty feature is the constant thought of God and his influence on moral decisions. McCarthy illustrates through the choices made by the characters how belief in God or lack thereof molds someone’s personal decisions and maybe even slants their moral compass in different directions.
The role of faith and spirituality in this novel can be argued in many different ways. In order to get a better grasp on its importance, it seems beneficial to decide how the main characters feel about their beliefs. It seems extremely likely that the boy believes in God and that he wants to do right by him, but whether or not the father believes in a higher being is not something so easily deciphered. God is mentioned throughout the length of the novel on multiple occasions and the feelings evoked from these excerpts range from hoping God will save their souls to cursing him and all that he …show more content…

He said: if he is not the word of God God never spoke” (McCarthy 5). This doesn’t necessarily reinforce the idea that the father believes in God but it does show that he sees the boy as something holy. His child being the answer that if God exists, then he would be the product of his great creation. Being the father’s warrant shows that the boy is his reason to live, he must keep going because something worth protecting is warranting him. Even if he doesn’t have faith in the Lord, having this mentality may be what keeps him from breaking under the harsh conditions of this new

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