Cormac McCarthy demonstrates in the The Road that there is hope in the bleakest of circumstances shown when the father finds the bunker full of supplies, the generosity towards Ely, and the boy finding a new family to be with after his father dies. McCarthy teaches the audience that there is hope in the bleakest of circumstances by the father finding the bunker full of supplies. The author creates a point in the story where the man and his son has lost their valuable supplies and now was starving to death, “He was finally beginning to think that death was upon them and that they should finally some place to hide where they would not be found” (McCarthy 129). As a result, the grim reality they are in is shown where after surviving so long with doubts this is the first time the man had actually lost hope and wished to die peacefully and out of sight. It is at this point where the theme of hope begins to flesh itself out and leave the reader thinking about hopeless situations they themselves have been in. McCarthy adds a …show more content…
resolution to this problem when the man finds a bunker full of supplies saying, “Oh my God, he whispered. Oh my God” (129). The man praises God, and would not use his name in vain but rather in astonishment and praise for finding an unbelievable safe haven. This bunker is a symbol of hope amidst a desolate wasteland where cannibalism, distrust, and death is the norm. Truly the man and his son had found hope in the most dreary of conditions but McCarthy continues to instill the theme of hope in the reader's mind in other moments in the novel. Comparatively, McCarthy shows the audience that there is hope in the bleakest of circumstances shown through the generosity towards Ely. The author introduces an old man named Ely who has been surviving by the skin of his teeth, “God knows what those eyes saw” (169). The reader can interpret that Ely has been through many horrible moments in his life and has given up hope as a repercussion. Thus Ely represents the most dire of situations one who has been through much and is looking forward to death. Before Ely and the man part ways the boy argues with man whether he should receive any food, “You should thank him, you know. I wouldn’t have given you anything” (173). The boy represents hope and his act of giving food to Ely, one who embodies the bleakest of circumstances, symbolizes the idea of spreading hope and clinging on to that hope to stay alive. The act of giving the food portrays a type of reward for those who hold on to hope. With hope comes faith and trust yet Ely is the exact opposite, despite that he receives generosity from the boy allowing the author to present the theme of hope in the most miserable of positions a second time. Furthermore, McCarthy teaches the audience that there is hope in the bleakest of circumstances through the boy finding a new family to be with after his father dies.
The man sadly passes away and the boy is left alone, “he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again” (281). McCarthy leaves the boy in a hopeless situation and the quote further makes it a depressing one. The image created is used to emulate the loss of a loved one with which the reader can sympathize and realize how the moment is one of the worst for the boy to be in. However, the author introduces a stranger and his family where the boy asks, “Are you carrying the fire?” (283). McCarthy has been using the aforementioned quote quite excessively in his novel but it has not been made clear what it really stands for. Now it is crystal clear that the fire represents hope and the will to live on that may spread to others so that they may do the
same. Cormac McCarthy makes the idea of hope in the bleakest of circumstances in his novel clear to his readers. The first example is the man finding a bunker full of supplies allowing him to keep living on with his son and sustain themselves. The next example is when the son pleads his father to give some food to Ely. The third example is when the man dies leaving his son, alone and distraught as he was, to find a new family to stay with. Adding on to the clarity of McCarthy’s intention to find hope, the author may have expected his readers to pull from his book the theme of spreading hope to others in need of it. The benefits of spreading hope outweighs the drawbacks and if the readers kept this lesson to heart, the existence of a such a hopeless world depicted in the book may be prevented through the few far and inbetween kindred acts that could unify the people together to that they may spread hope and continue carrying the fire.
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
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.
The imagery of fire continues in the story; the building of their fires, how the man molds the fires, and how they stoke the fire. When the boy gets sick the father is referred to many times of how he builds and rekindles the fire. This actual fire is a symbol for the fire that the man and the boy discuss carrying within in them. The man fights to save his son and the fire within the boy
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.
McCarthy is trying to show that during desperate times there is a sudden loss in humanity due to the uneasiness and the drastic measures one will take in order to survive. A person will do anything it takes to survive in desperate and desolate worlds. McCarthy is proving this with his diction and choice of imagery. A man and a boy set out to survive in a tragic and dangerous world, where the main food source is depleting and all resources are deteriorating. A novel about what is left of a man’s family and how they struggle to survive. Humanity is tested and shows just how extreme ones actions can be. The want for life is tested, one could question whether or not survival will be possible for the man and the
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, The Road describes a father and son’s fight for their lives as they journey the road south for the winter. An unknown catastrophe has plagued the world, leaving hell on Earth for all who inhabit it. Rotting corpses, abandoned homes, and devastated landscapes are an everyday sight. Worst of all, human beings have reverted back to barbarism, leaving humanity and any sense of morals behind. Critics argue that The Road has “no plotline or story arc of character development” (165). Although even though The Road explains nothing, it actually explains everything. In fact, the novel consists of deeper meanings intended for readers to uncover themselves. In particular, the road itself is a major symbolic aspect of the
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...
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.
The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, tells the story of a man and his young son who remain nameless. The story takes place in an Armageddon like world where not a lot of humans have survived. The man and the boy are trying to travel to the south in hopes of being in a warmer climate and to also see if the conditions there are better. Throughout their journey they see plenty of traumatizing occurrences such as rotting corpses, ash like air and skies, dead babies, and towns that have been completely abandoned. The man and the boy also run into devastating situations where they meet other humans who have been driven to cannibalism and who also want to kill the man and the boy.
McCarthy made it very obvious throughout the whole book the theme of Parental love between the father and son, trust between the other survivors, and also the theme of death. The wife of the nameless father stated in the beginning of the book, “the boy was all that stood between him and death"(McCarthy 25). The man's urges to kill himself was fueled by the love he had for his son, and how much love the son had for him.
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.