Nature In Cormac Mccarthy's Novel 'The Road'

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Gabbie Ponce
19 October 2017
4th Period
AP English 4
The Road Essay Paper

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road nature plays an important part to the Man and his son. Nature gives them challenges and also give them some good in a post apocalyptic world that is everything but friendly. The Man and the Boy set off on their journey, and on their way they find some new things that they think will be useful and also find some things that remind them of their life before world changed. All in all, nature in this novel can be seen as either a friend and foe for the two scavengers. To start, nature can be brutal and can be difficult to deal with especially when you don’t have anything to protect yourself with, or shelter to go to as you are …show more content…

By day the Man and his son are walking south, to the sea, because of the harsh winters that they have to endure in order to make it. By night the two males are trying to find shelter and eat what they scavenged throughout their walks and Man will listen out for any danger that may come. Because it is winter and during that time there is snow and rain nights become extremely difficult as they are already short on some supplies. Making fires and keeping them lit is one of the hardest things the Man tries to maintain, but with heavy winds, rain and the snow, they risk the chance of hypothermia, especially with very little energy to keep up with them. Finally, nature seems to be good to them when they find edible mushrooms. To them it seems to be a miracle that they would find something still good, going for them. Of all the bad that they had gone through, and nature throwing everything it could at them, nature managed to give them some light after what felt like an eternity of darkness.
In conclusion, with the Man having nothing else to live for except to just care for the boy and attend to his needs, it would seem that nature would have won that battle a while back. But nature is a friend and foe to the novel’s main character, bringing both males “hell and back” situations that leave them struggling yet thriving. Leaving them to survive just one more day and reach the

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