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Literary criticism of the road by cormac mccarthy
Literary analysis the road cormac mccarthy
The road cormac mccarthy survival
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The Road: Hope and Love in the Face of the Apocalypse
Winning many awards including the Pulitzer, readers wondered why and how Cormac McCarthy wrote The Road. McCarthy was motivated by a quiet day with his son in El Paso, Texas. When he looked outside, he saw no one, and the land felt like it had been abandoned for years. What started off as a short two page story on that moment soon became a novel. In this story, McCarthy is able to reflect his own relationship with his son and portray the love and hope between a father and his son in times of desperation. He is able to develop multiple themes and lessons from his writing, but one stood out most. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy depicts that in a world full of death and desperation, faith and
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love is crucial in order for one to carry on. Throughout the novel, it can easily be seen that the father’s only care or love in the world is his son.
The Man wakes up in the middle of the night and reaches out to his son to make sure he is there. “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him” (McCarthy 2). This immediately portrays how the father is worried about his son constantly. His son is all he has left in this ugly, ugly world. He is what is keeping the Man alive. The Man needs to know that his son is always close. This type of love is the reason they have yet to die. In Jack E. Trotter’s literary evaluation of The Road, he explains how Cormac McCarthy is able to fascinate his readers with a horrific description of a post apocalyptic world. He describes how McCarthy is able to incorporate feelings, humanity, hope, and love into a novel that may not capture people who are into an action packed plot. He states, “The Road’s touching portrayal of the father’s obsessive love for his only son is easily the most engaging of human relationships that McCarthy has created” (Trotter). The love shown between the father and the son is what keeps them constantly fighting and surviving in the awful world. No matter what they may see or face, they carry …show more content…
on. As the man’s life comes to an end in the story, his love for the boy has yet to cease, and he wants him to keep his hope no matter what.
The father tells his son to find the faith inside him and carry it through on the rest of his journey. He won’t be on this journey with him any longer. “You have to carry the fire...It’s inside you. It was always there. I can see it” (McCarthy 145). As the father dies, he tells his son to find the hope, faith, and trust inside him. He tells him to find it and carry on without him. He wants his son to survive and the only way that is possible is if he has hope and motivation. In her critical essay “Beyond Redemption,” Shelly L. Rambo describes the gloomy, barren setting in which the man and his son set upon. She explains how the landscape is one of survival, but death is inevitable and even welcomed. By the end, she depicts how the father’s journey was over, but the bond with his son lived on in the boy’s
heart. “Without reading the book, the reader might sense the possibility of hope, of divine presence, even of redemption. Although the father has died, the son will live on and carry on the father's memory” (Rambo). Hope and faith remains in the hearts of the father and the son and keeps them fighting for survival. Even when the father passes, the son carries on with this hope. The Road is able to portray to its readers how the father and the son live only for each other in this world. They take on a road in which they both are each other’s lives. It is a long road that they both know they might not finish. However, they stay surviving. “Are you okay? he said. The boy nodded. Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire” (McCarthy 3). Throughout the novel, the father asks his son if he is okay. He is continuously worried because he knows that his son is all he has. In turn, the Man is also all his son has in this world. Thus, they travel down the road together with nothing to lose but each other. In her literary assessment of The Road, Shelly Rambo states that the author successfully portrays the relationship between a father and his son in times of fear. “McCarthy is depicting the substance of hope and the triumph of parental love in the face of terror” (Rambo). In the face of utter death and destruction, love between the father and the son never dies, and the hope they carry lives forever. As the novel comes to an end, the man is inevitably passing away. As he dies, he conveys his love to his son. He tells him to stay strong and carry on. “I know. I’m sorry. You have my whole heart. You always did. You’re the best guy. You always were. If I’m not here you can still talk to me...” (McCarthy 145). Here, the father’s life is coming to an end, and his son does not want to carry on without him. He wants his father, but his father wants him to be strong and survive. They both love each other deeply and being torn apart by death is too painful. Shelly Rambo states in her evaluation that hope and love is consistent throughout the novel. “Others interpret the boy's survival as a testimony to the persistence of hope and regeneration, a necessary ending to the tender father-son relationship that McCarthy presents” (Rambo). The survival of the son portrays how hope is far from dead and will carry on with the boy even if the father has died. Taking place in a post apocalyptic world, the father and the son constantly see awful sights, and love is what keeps them from collapsing in fear and disgust. The Boy and the Man enter a dark building and the Boy sees something very disturbing. His father hugs him close and makes him feel protected. “What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I’m sorry, he whispered. I’m sorry” (McCarthy 103). In an apocalyptic, cannibalistic world, one is bound to encounter horrific sights. Here, the son sees a headless gutted infant and digs his face into his father’s legs. His father quickly grabs him, hugs him, and apologizes. He wants to protect his son from such a terrifying thing. He loves him and is broken that he has to see sights like that. In Cordelia Barrera’s “The Road” evaluation, she suggests that the journey the man and his son are taking to the coast displays their hope and faith that there may be something there. She also explains that the father’s only incentive to live is his son and that he wishes his son never had to live in such a terrifying, violent world. “Regardless of the many charred bodies, ghastly horrors, evils, and vanished ethics of the human race that The Road portrays, the novel evinces an ambiguous hope in the possibility that goodness lies buried deep within the human frame” (Barrera). Despite all the horrors the man and the boy have seen, the hope that humanity continues to love and is still alive keeps them going. Hope is what keeps the man and the boy from giving up on their long trek. Reaching the coast was all they had left. “He said that everything depended on reaching the coast, yet waking in the night he knew that all of this was empty and no substance to it. There was a good chance they would die in the mountains and that would be that” (McCarthy 15). Their goal was to reach the shore. Although this goal may seem empty at times, keeping faith and trust in the process is what helps them continue to move. Without this goal, they would never make it far or even survive long enough. In Trotter’s essay on The Road, he says, “This hope is all the more impressively achieved against the background of global annihilation.” Hope in the face of a destroyed, annihilated world is extremely important and the man and the son are able to maintain this faith throughout the entire novel. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy is able to demonstrate how familial love and hope in times of death, destruction, and despair is critical. This is depicted through multiple occasions. One occasion was when the father woke up in the middle of the night and immediately reached for his son. Another was when the author described how both the father and the son lived for each other. When the son caught a glimpse of charred, horrific dead bodies, his father holds him close with love and comfort. Finally, in his dying breaths, the man tells the boy that he loves him and that he must carry on with hope and faith in the face of any horror. He must carry on. Until today, this lesson is significant. Millions of people across the world face major hardships (war, starvation, genocide, etc…) everyday. It is crucial that they maintain their faith and their love in the face of all of this. Meanwhile the rest of the world needs to unite and help those in need.
He always wants to help someone else in need before himself, whereas the father is only concerned about their own personal wellbeings. He “is the one” who worries about their ethical choices and wants to help a stranger in any way he can (259). McCarthy proves the importance of the boy’s spirit of love for other people when his dad dies and he must take the leap of faith to continue along the road with a new family. Despite all the corrupted people they encountered beforehand, the boy meets someone who is “carrying the fire” (129). This mantra by the father and son, symbolizes hope and humanity. The qualities Steinbeck labels for a writer to create in his writings can be summed up in “carrying the fire” since the two never did give up. It is the greatness of the heart and spirit Steinbeck notes that is “inside [them]. [And] [i]t [is] always there” (279). It is noteworthy that even in the midst of death and ashes, the two are able to hold onto their relationship and sanity. The “good guys” can continue to carry meaning and structure in their lives, even in a time where society turned into a battle to survive on the remnants of
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 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.
While reading the novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy the overall aspect is pessimistic. It is about violence, hardship, death, fear, and the loss of hope. Throughout the book, the two main characters, the man, and boy face up against some of the toughest survival and life lessons. Together they face the woman’s suicide, starvation, the idea of rape, sickness, survival of the apocalypse, and in a sense being hunted like prey by cannibals who also managed to survive the terrifying possibilities that cause Earth to go to chaos. Within the novel, there are hundreds of examples to provide evidence of the pessimistic nature of the novel. Cormac McCarthy who is the author continuously writes in his novel about some of the deepest and darkest situations
Losing a phone compared to being raped, starved, killed, and eaten in pieces makes everyday life seem not so excruciating. Cormac McCarthy was born July 20, 1933 and is one of the most influencing writers of this era. McCarthy was once so poor he could not even afford toothpaste. Of course this was before he became famous. His lifestyle was hotel to hotel. One time he got thrown out of a $40 dollar a month hotel and even became homeless. This is a man who from experience knows what should be appreciated. McCarthy published a novel that would give readers just that message called The Road. Placed in a world of poverty the story is about a man and his son. They travel to a warmer place in hopes of finding something more than the scattered decomposing bodies and ashes. The father and son face hunger, death, and distrust on their long journey. 15 year old Lawrence King was shot for being gay. Known as a common hate crime, the murderer obviously thought he was more superior to keep his life and to take someone’s life. Believing ideas in a possible accepting world with no conditions is dangerous thought to that person’s immunity to the facts of reality.
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...
With the son’s fear amongst the possibility of death being near McCarthy focuses deeply in the father’s frustration as well. “If only my heart were stone” are words McCarthy uses this as a way illustrate the emotional worries the characters had. ( McCarthy pg.11). Overall, the journey of isolation affected the boy just as the man both outward and innerly. The boys’ journey through the road made him weak and without a chance of any hope. McCarthy states, “Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all” (McCarthy pg. 28). The years of journey had got the best of both, where they no longer had much expectation for
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
...he thought it was beauty or about goodness.” Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all.” (McCarthy 129,130). “The man” still shows acts of kindness towards strangers here and there in hopes that the boy will not follow in his footsteps and give up fate as well; he wants “the boy,” as McCarthy states it, to continue “to carry the fire.”
At first the relationship between a father and his son can be perceived as a simple companionship. However, this bond can potentially evolve into more of a dynamic fitting relationship. In The Road The Man and his son have to depend on one another because they each hold a piece of each other. The Man holds his sons sense of adulthood while the son posses his father’s innocence. This reliance between the father and son create a relationship where they need each other in order to stay alive. “The boy was all that stood between him and death.” (McCarthy 29) It is evident that without a reason to live, in this case his son, The Man has no motivation to continue living his life. It essentially proves how the boy needs his father to love and protect him, while the father needs the boy to fuel ...
In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, in the post-apocalyptic world that the man and the boy live in, dreams begin to take on the form of a new “reality.” As the novel progresses, the man’s dreams, initially memories remnant of his pre-apocalypse life, become “brighter” as the boy’s dreams become darker and nightmarish. Through the use of color and distinct language, McCarthy emphasizes the contrast between reality and dreams. The man’s reliance on bad dreams to keep him tied to the harsh reality alludes to the hopelessness of the situation; he can never truly escape. McCarthy suggests that those who strive for a life that no longer exists are deluded with false hope. Having dreams is a natural human tendency, but in a world that has become so inhumane, the man can’t even afford to retain this element of being human. The loss of the past is a concept that the characters living in this ashen world struggle with, and McCarthy presents memory as a weakness to be exploited.