Cormac McCarthy’s work is significantly influenced by the ideas of survival. In No Country for Old Men and The Road, the characters are scared and will do almost anything to survive. Fear causes people to do almost anything, while subsisting. Survival is, essentially running from the fear of mortality. In No Country for Old Men, a man runs for his life because he fears the man that is coming for his life. He is running from death. In The Road, a father and his son are forced to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The two of them always have the constant fear of running out of food, water. The father also has the fear of leaving his son alone in this hellish world. Fear is a powerful force, and people will do anything to outlast death. To begin, in McCarthy’s No Country for old Men, Llewelyn Moss, a young and ordinary man from Texas, will do anything when fearing for his life. Moss “ was a law abiding citizen. Workin a nine to five job,” (McCarthy 220). He was an average blue-collared …show more content…
The Boy will have to continue life alone. Before the Man passes on, he continues to comfort the Boy by telling him that he will “ have to carry the fire” (McCarthy 279). The fire is not a tangible fire, but it is the inner strength of the Boy. The Boy needs to understand that he is strong enough to continue alone. The Man has taught the Boy everything he needs to know about survival. Returning to the subject, fear made the Man do unthinkable things, but it was all to keep his son safe. The Man, like Llewelyn Moss, was not known as a murderous person, but fear changes personalities. When people face their fears, they do anything that is necessary to get past those fears. The Man murdered a stranger to threatening the life of his son, and he left another man without life essentials to die. Now the Boy knows what he needs to do to continue, and he knows to do what ever is necessary when his life is in
The son upheld the idea that in dire situations, he must abandon everything except for the instinct to survive. Harsh and dangerous conditions can affect one's outlook on life as well as their priorities. In The Last Days, Irene Zisblatt witnesses the brutal beating of a small child as his head was bashed against the side of a truck by a SS officer until the blunt force trauma caused the young child to die (Moll). The trauma from seeing the small boy being abused to death traumatizes Irene, which prompts her into losing her faith in God. As Irene notices the cruel atrocities taking place around her, she questions whether God is really there for the innocent Jewish people if he does not try to stop such horrible events taking place.
The boy’s mother will take the easy way out for herself so that she won’t have to fight through the pain. By taking her own life, she will leave the boy in the father’s hands. The boy misses his mother everyday
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
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
The stylistic choices an author makes when writing has a huge impact on the mood and atmosphere of the piece created. Take, for example, Cormac Mcarthy’s The Road, and Gregory Robert’s Shantaram. The two incredible novels are in many ways similar, however also very different due to a different writing styles.
“[He] looked across at his father and wondered just how he was going to tell him. It was a very serious thing.” This point of view demonstrates how nervous the boy is to tell his father that a close friend, Bill Harper, was arriving the next day to fish with him. The boy sits next to the fire and parries the idea of divulging his innocent plan. He knows that things are changing in his life and that eventually he must leave his father and create a new life with new social requirements, demonstrated by this quote: “He knew it was something that had to happen sometime. Yet he also knew that it was the end of something.” The boy goes on the wonder, “It was an ending to a beginning and he wondered just how he should tell his father about it.” The boy’s thoughtful attitude exhibits a bond between father and son and a relationship of respect. The boy wonders if it is also a relationship of
Living in fear and trying to survive to be last man standing is a way of living in many cities around the country. In a world where men have to wear their manhood on their sleeves and solving their problem with violence, lives are not as meaningful. In “My brother’s murder” the author Brent Staples narrates the story of how his brother Blake choses to be part of this violence to survive in a dangerous neighborhood in which they were both raised. These decisions leaded to his early death at only 22 years old. Blake could of leave the toxic environment, chose a different lifestyle, or accept his brother help when he offered. All the differences decisions he could of take instead of following the violence path could have save his life, making him responsible for his own death
This decision will change him forever, but perhaps it will give him his life back as well. This idea starts to form in his mind when he has a conversation with another broken man. The man reveals that Conroy planted some incriminating evidence, and the man was given three years on top of his original one. When he first hears this, the boy doesn’t really understand. But then “A dawning horror awakens in the white-haired boy. It fills his work boots with terror and gives cold air to the sagging of his pants behind his hollowing thighs.”[15] He understand now, that his two years may not end at two years. This broken man opens the boy’s eyes, explain why Conroy would plant evidence. “I was a favorite – just like you.”[16] The boy understands his position now, and searches for a way out. When he is working in the shop, he gets lost staring at the sharp blades used to cut the cloth. He knows that the prisoners make them into shanks, but if Risk got word that he had one there’d be trouble. “But he was a hand boy in his dad’s workshop. He looks at the glittering metal blades and thinks, I can make one.”[17] But he’s still slightly broken. “The boy just stands there like a ghost, his white hair hanging in a halo around his vacant face, the red lips standing out like a punch, his legs two thin sticks under his pants. The tender belly of youth has disappeared into a hollow cavern under his uniform, and sometimes when he reaches to his privates to piss he thinks there is nothing there. That little snail shell has just gone up and disappeared.”[18] He’s desperate to find a solution, so he can reclaim both his body and his life. But he knows that using the shank on Risk would do nothing for him, he’s not just Risk’s property anymore. So, he asks himself the question that will complete his transformation. “What will I do with
In the beginning of the story, the narrator feels very uncomfortable knowing that he will
...he thought it was beauty or about goodness.” Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all.” (McCarthy 129,130). “The man” still shows acts of kindness towards strangers here and there in hopes that the boy will not follow in his footsteps and give up fate as well; he wants “the boy,” as McCarthy states it, to continue “to carry the fire.”
In Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, compare the moral implication that McCarthy gives versus the Coens’ implied moral judgment of Carson Wells played by Woody Harrelson. In the literary text McCarthy’s lack the use of standard literary punctuation in quoting which character is speaking almost as if he interjects cinematic fiction for the purpose disorienting the audience. McCarthy characterizes Wells, a hit man, as a philosophical, militant, and mercenary who never touches a weapon for self-defense or offense. The Coen brothers’ make due with such limitation when directing Harrelson to humanize Wells’ psychotic personality when face to face with Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem. The Coen brothers overly complicate
With the son’s fear amongst the possibility of death being near McCarthy focuses deeply in the father’s frustration as well. “If only my heart were stone” are words McCarthy uses this as a way illustrate the emotional worries the characters had. ( McCarthy pg.11). Overall, the journey of isolation affected the boy just as the man both outward and innerly. The boys’ journey through the road made him weak and without a chance of any hope. McCarthy states, “Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all” (McCarthy pg. 28). The years of journey had got the best of both, where they no longer had much expectation for
In One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and "The South" by Jorge Luis Borges, many similar devices are used by the authors. Their presentations and their uses are sometimes similar and at times dissimilar. There is one device that is used by both authors that is one of the most prominent devices in both works--the train. The presentation and use of the train in both texts is different, but in both it is a method of transportation and an evil entity that is an active symbol of change.
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 ...
The story opens with the boy, whom to this point had ignored his mothers coughs, drops everything to rush to her aid as she “collapsed into a little wicker armchair, holding her side”. (O’Connor 206) As he watched his mother struggle trying to light the fire he told her, “Go back to bed and Ill light the fire”. (206) Now to this point, as the reader, I am unsure of the age of the boy, but I get the impression that he is a young boy. My idea of this boy is that he tries to take on too much throughout the day and eventually it was the demise of the opposite sex that eventually caused the meltdown of the “awesome” little boy. This is certainly something that will happen again to this young lad but he has definitely learned his lesson this time.