The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a tale of survival in a dangerous life after war scenario. In this new world things such as morality are almost nonexistent. There are no longer government agencies, such as the police, to inforce the laws. This lead to people choosing to always make the bad decision over the moral option such as robbing someone for their supplies, or murdering someone so they could use them as a food source. The father fell into the category of doing whatever it takes to survive, where he killed and robbed people. The boy on the other hand is always the one who is urging them to do whatever is the ethical choice. The father and son’s voyage across McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic wasteland, the boy emerges as the pure “good guy” because …show more content…
According to Stephanie Bowman, “The father continues showing us how he sacrifices others as well as a bit of his morals, for his son’s welfare.” When it comes to his son’s safety, nothing else matters which leads to him doing bad things that hurts the son more mentally than physically. No matter the situation, even when it came to the chance to get food to fulfill their hunger, the father would be cautious and tell them they could not eat some of the things they found, such as a can of tomatoes that “Someone before him had not trusted them and in the end neither did he” (McCarthy 22). The boy and the father were both starving, but they did not eat the food they had found because whoever raided the house before did not trust it so the man would not take the chance of not keeping his son safe to fill their needs. There are other times throughout the novel that the father does the non-honorable thing so that they do in fact eat. The boy made the father promise the son that they would not kill and eat the dog that had been following them, but the father broke that promise and “tried to coax it to come but it would not. I made a noose of wire to catch it” (McCarthy 87). Although the father had promised not to kill the dog, and knew killing the dog was not a very “good” thing to do, he did it anyways to survive and get food in his son’s stomach to keep them moving forward. In Cormac McCarthy’s terrible wasteland creation, the father does what he need to do to survive and keep his son safe no matter what morality repercussions it brings upon
In two differing stories of departure, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Steinbeck’s standard for a writer is met by the raw human emotions exhibited in the main characters’ success and defeat.
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.
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.
When the man and boy meet people on the road, the boy has sympathy for them, but his father is more concerned with keeping them both alive. The boy is able to get his father to show kindness to the strangers (McCarthy), however reluctantly the kindness is given. The boy’s main concern is to be a good guy. Being the good guy is one of the major reasons the boy has for continuing down the road with his father. He does not see there is much of a point to life if he is not helping other people. The boy wants to be sure he and his father help people and continue to carry the fire. The boy is the man’s strength and therefore courage, but the man does not know how the boy worries about him how the boy’s will to live depends so much on his
In other words, the man's thirst for survival is fueled by the love for his son. While the man may anticipate his own death, he continues to ignore it and lives in order to seek life for the boy. McCarthy portrays the father as not wanting kill the boy preemptively to save him from a society of destruction, rape, murder, and cannibalism unlike the mother who thinks it’s better to go the easy route. To the father, suicide is only an option for the son if he is to be imminently harmed. McCarthy provides the theme of one person sacrificing or doing anything humanly possible for the one they love by depicting an idea of love even in a world of nothing.
Although finding food was a struggle for them, the man always put the boy’s health before his. The man made sure the boys thirst and hunger was always gone and that he had food to eat and drinks to drink. “He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let's just sit here.” (Page 27). In this quote, the man gave the boy the last of the soda but the boy got upset that the man didn’t take any, so the man took a sip and proceeded to give it to the boy. This is important because the father knows that he’s thirsty and could kill for a drink, but he knows that this is the first and last soda the boy would ever get. “He'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and then poured his own cup with hot water and sat blowing at the rim.” (Page 18). This quote shows us too that the man always made sure that the boy got the better part of the deal. The boy got to drink cocoa but the man just drank hot water. The father does this because he got to live through his childhood without this apocalyptic world but the boy only lived a few years that he really doesn’t remember. These quotes show paternal love because they explain how the father always puts the son before him. Through all of the actions the father takes, it shows us how much he really cares about the son, and that his son is his only hope and his fire for
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.
The boy constantly begs his father to be sympathetic and charitable to the drifters that they encounter on the road, but the father usually refuses or either puts up an argument before finally giving into the boy, and handing over one or two cans of food to the stranger. Although “the man” is in survival mode, he expresses no compassion for humanity and therefore represents “the bad guys”. “They came upon him shuffling along the road before them, dragging one leg slightly and stopping from time to time to stand stooped and uncertain before setting out again.”(McCarthy 49). “They followed him a good ways but at his pace they were losing the day and finally he just sat down in the road and did not get up again.”(McCarthy 49). “He was burntlooking as the country, his clothing scorched and black.” “One of his eyes was burnt shut and his hair was but a nitty wig of ash upon his blackened skull.”(McCarthy 49, 50). “What is wrong with the man?” “He’s been struck by lightning.” “Can’t we help him?” “Papa?” “No.” “We cant help him.” “The boy kept pulling at his coat.” “Papa?” “Stop it.” “Cant we help him Papa?” “No.” “We can’t help him.” “There’s nothing to be done for him.” “They went on. “The boy was crying” “He kept looking back.” (McCarthy 50). I was agitated with “the man” during this part of the novel, because I feel that he should have at least stopped and checked on the fee...
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 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.
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.
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.
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 ...