The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a story that starts off with a man and his son in the wilderness. Throughout the novel, they venture down a road during the aftermath of an apocalyptic scenario. The Father makes it clear that anything will be done on his part to ensure his son’s safety, while the son learns journeys down the road by his side. The Road showcases a constant struggle for survival, which consists of continuing down a path to eventually get to the coast, in the hopes of eventually getting over the initial hump in adjusting to their newly adapted lifestyle.
McCarthy does not use very many labels or really any specific names to describe where the boy and Father are located throughout the novel. This allows for the characters to feel
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more relatable to the audience. Since there are fewer specifics, this allows more people to feel their struggle in a general sense, because this struggle is more than likely taking place within different groups of people all across the area. Mr. McCarthy does a great job at selling the setting of the environment they are now attempting to survive in by doing away with following grammar rules, which gives off a feeling of grittiness. It is as if a tide has caused a change in the way people interpret the world to where rules simply don’t apply. No order lies here, so there is no reason to follow the same communication guidelines if nothing is and possibly never will be the same again. When reading The Road, you will realize, like I stated earlier, that the Father will take on any challenge and jump through all proverbial hoops to keep his son protected. Religion also plays a major role in exemplifying this meaning, as the Father firmly believes that God has given him the responsibility of keeping his son out of harm’s way. This can also drive the Father’s sense of hope, because he trusts that there is always going to be a deeper meaning to the life that they are living now. Regardless of all the negative or even positive memories you bare or experiences you might go through, there will always be a pathway to solace through the light of the lord. However, the physical pathway is the road, and the promise land or representation of heaven is portrayed by the ocean. The theme of this novel revolves around constant struggling to search for hope. This isn’t to say that hope is lost but that hope is simply never stopping the quest for finding solace. The Father is a strong willed, serious and resourceful man, who only wants what is best for his son.
He shows off his resourcefulness by teaching his son how to shoot a gun in order to protect him in the event of an emergency. And the amount of potential emergencies will be through the roof thanks to the fear of not knowing what people are can be trusted, since there are no laws being enforced to keep them protected from murderers, muggers, etc. He seems to have a well above descent grip on the circumstances at hand and knows what his son needs to know. During the novel, attackers come and grab the boy, to which the man responds by kneeling and shooting the evil doer in the forehead with his pistol. He even asked the attacker “What do you think you're going to do with that?” whenever he noticed that he was holding a knife and closing the distance between him and the boy (McCarthy, 112). He asked a simple question, because he knew that this could be a potential threat to the life of his child, so when he did not respond he mentally prepared to get ready to take the shot. He was straight to the point and took the entire event as serious as he possibly could, which also allowed him to be more calmed and collected to get an accurate …show more content…
shot. The Father shows off his ability to be strong willed by not only by having the will to be killing the bad guys but by not letting his emotions regarding his son interfere with him. Take for example when the Father takes the time to carve a flute for the boy. He actually carved an instrument for him during a time of panic, sadness and search for hope. Against it all, the Father shows how much he cares for the boy by taking the time to create a gift for him. The boy says that he “threw it away” whenever his Father had asked what had happened to it. He simply responded by saying “okay.” This leads one to believe that he not only cares for his son more than anything, but he understands that the toll that this new world has taken on the boy is enough to make you question getting angry over something miniscule like a wooden carving. He also knows that saying this will give his son a cue to reply with the same response; this ends the conversation and disconnects his son from worrying about his Father’s emotions, as the dad knows that he is not that upset by his son throwing away the flute. After all, he is only a boy; a boy that is struggling for his life not knowing if he will eventually make it out of this hellish nightmare. The son, on the other hand, takes after his Father in having the motivation and drive to push forward through the struggles put before him, yet he has a gigantic reservoir of compassion. The son has a unique relationship with his dad, where he always ends a conversation with the word “okay.” This almost signifies a sign of relief for both parties, as they are aware that whatever they have been conversing about has come to a conclusion. The boy has many questions such as what his Father would do if he were to pass, and the boy says “okay” at the end to show his Father that he now has an answer to his earlier question and can move forward. This really shows off the boy’s compassion to learn about the man and be more knowledgeable in general. In the end, the boy’s innocence gives another outlook for his Father to base his decisions regarding the two of them for the future. Whenever the Father is shot in the leg with an arrow he tells his son, at first, calmly to get the first aid kit, but the boy stares at him like a deer in headlights. With that added sense of urgency, the Father yelled at him to get the first aid kit and apologized afterwards for screaming. The boy gives the “okay” when the man asks if they could start over, essentially moving forward from the situation. Not only did the boy’s concern in the heat of the moment cause his Father to take a step back and realize the occurred events were nearly unbearable for his son, but that he was only concerned and wants to emotionally disconnect from what seems like an accidental, knee jerk reaction from the Father screaming, which is what the son does by giving him the okay. McCarthey does a phenomenal job at presenting a clear, ironic conflict of interest between the son’s willingness to help others, and the man’s eagerness to keep his son safe and avoid being too naïve and putting their trust into a stranger that could hurt them. The road foreshadows that they will eventually get to the end; there has to be resolve at the end of this path. There must be light at the end of the tunnel. The road symbolizes a straight path that does not change and can be taken many different ways. You can choose to keep to yourself and ride the path of caution to further reassure yourself of your own safety. The bad guys are a perfect example the polar opposites to the more pure actions of both the boy and his dad, who look out and keep all other humans in mind or keep to themselves and do what is required for their unit to survive, respectively. By the end of the novel, they reach the ocean and find that it was not what they were looking for.
The hopeful place that they sought out on a long journey to reach was not what they expected or intended to be. The Father dies and leaves the boy, and the boy refused to leave his dad on the ground to die. However, this was out of the boy’s control, and he realized this whenever he met another man who claimed to have a boy and girl and was one of the good guys. The boy realized that he needed to push onward and adapt to the situation, which meant detaching himself from his Father and saying “okay” to the event that occurred. This is where I believe that the boy held true to his innocence. He knew that he would need assistance in order to survive and left his Father to go with another group of people. This further expresses the theme of continuing to search for hope. Hope is the fire that burns within you to keep fighting; hope is the process of searching and working towards an end result or ultimate goal. The feeling of hopelessness can only be sustained when one loses sight of what they believe in and what they are looking to achieve in their life. Overall, the idea of hope is kept alive by knowing that there is always a chance for light at the end of the road, but there are also many roads and long distances that might need to be traversed to get to the end and see what’s on the other side. And when failure arises and what you hoped and longed for was not what you thought
it was going to be, you pick yourself off, learn and make adjustments based on your errors and successes and venture on forward. Only when you stop will hope not be present, and the boy is still open-minded to the thought of there being other people in the world that are willing to help him and can be helped, and it is that drive that kept the boy going and allowed him to leave with a new family. As long as the fire continues to burn, the pathway can be lit and the light at the end can be seen.
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.
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.
McCarthy portrays the man as one sacrificing and doing anything humanly possible for the one he loves which is the boy. The type of love that is visible in this novel isn’t found in usual novels. Instead of portraying just a father and son relationship, it also presents a representative of a self-sacrifice and companionship. Even though, both the father and the son care dearly for the survival of one another, in the first quarter of the novel, the term of euthanasia is suddenly taken into consideration. The father had thoughts of killing his own son, because he said that the truth was that the boy was keeping him alive, “They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he were a good father still it might well be as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death” (8). McCarthy creates through diction how important the boy is to the man for the man feels as if the boy is the only reason he alive. . In this novel McCarthy presents through imagery ...
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,
Imagine a devastating event that does not just change the world but alters all aspects of life to the point of being unrecognizable. How does one keep hope alive in a world where everything is either dying or has turned evil? In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, this is the daily struggle that confronts the man and boy. This remarkable story is about a father and son's attempts to survive in a barren landscape, faced with the constant threat of starvation, murder, exposure, and illness; they must continually decipher between good and evil, preserve the goodness of civilization, and find a purpose to continue their journey, especially when the existence of God is questionable. McCarthy's thematic purpose is to show that the qualities that mankind
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.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road, is an award-winning novel about an unidentifiable man who is traveling with his son. The protagonists are trapped in a post-apocalyptic world that has been besieged by nothingness and entirely stripped of life, food, and most of all, morality. They travel a treacherous road leading south where they encounter cannibals, burnt bodies, and the ruins of former houses. The world and people around them has turned amoral and unforgiving. For the protagonists, however, morality and goodness still exist. With each day, they are able to maintain faith, hope, and goodness which gives them the motivation to continue their journey. McCarthy's novel shows that even during the worst of times, love and morality will prevail and goodness will be found.
McCarthy wrote the novel in ways that force readers to remove themselves from their comfort zones. He wrote The Road with a lack of punctuation that can make things somewhat confusing for readers. Some critics find that without quotation marks it makes the book hard to follow. But when I read the book I found that after the first fifty pages I understood when the characters were speaking. Finding that I had to pay a little more attention didn’t bother ...
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.”
...ng the underlying theme that drives the story and the movie, propels the reader and viewer to rekindle the desire to hope above all else because hope is all one has in devastating as well as dire needs. Hope overcomes despair, permits others to see your “inner light” to develop integrity which connects with honesty and trust. Hope is the inspiration to continue to live regardless of the circumstances. Red may have narrated; “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” But, Andy Dufresne states it best: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
McCarthy’s novel clarifies the affects isolation made for the traveler’s in the story. In particular to the son, isolation affected him in a more discrete way than the father. Everything he sees and experiences goes into great affect in what makes
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.
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 ...