Resilience Of Love In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

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Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road explores the resilience of human life and human sentiment. But the most tenacious emotion exemplified in the novel appears to be love. The novel illustrates how love influences the characters to endure in a godless post-apocalyptic world. The father and son are emotionally controlled by the love that they share for one another. Without the resilience of human emotion, the father and son would have perished with the rest of the world. McCarthy illustrates how the complex emotion of love can influence his characters will to survive in the desolate new world. The role that love plays in McCarthy’s novel has been a theme of immense discussion. Marcel DeCoste states in a literary criticism that “the father's …show more content…

Without his son, the father would have relinquished his will to live much earlier. Another instance of loves perseverance in the novel is when the boy’s father lay dying; the father states, “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. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see.” (279). It is as if the boy is the fathers heart in the metaphorical sense. The father’s love for his son is so great that he exonerates his previous motive of having his son perish alongside of him. Even in his dying breaths the father encourages his son to continue in his pursuit of survival. McCarthy, being an expert novelist, allows the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the role that love plays in the new world. McCarthy does so through referring to love as “the fire” and referencing those who carry “the fire” as the “good …show more content…

The boy refuses to surrender his will to live even though the only person who he truly loves has died. When describing the choices that the character’s make, it is important to understand that love is resilient in the boy, while the father only loves his son and nothing more. Therefore if the boy died the father would ultimately commit suicide; however, the boy has the ability to love more than just his father and that drives his will to pursue life after his father’s death. Unlike his father, the boy recognizes that there is still good in the world. Between the boy maintaining his ability to love and to trust, there seems to be a chance for the regeneration of a wholesome society. The boy truly carries the fire in his heart, while the father carries nothing but a small dying flame that is only capable of loving his son. The boy can survive in this new world without his father, yet the father inability to pursue love and trust would cause him to die if his son

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