Goodness And Morality In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

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Goodness and Morality in The Road
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.
Morality is a culturally based idea of right and wrong. In The Road, due to the aftermath of the unspecified cataclysm, the land was left desolate and the survivors are desperate. The world no longer has any remnants of the past thus culture and ethics do not exist. As a result, the remaining majority trivializes the use of morals due to desperation and in an attempt to survive. However, the protagonists are able to find solace in the goodness of each other. They …show more content…

The son eventually convinces his father to share some of their food with him and as a result they begin talking and the man invites him to stay for dinner. While eating, the man and the stranger begin talking about the boy and the man mentions how he believes his son is a god. The old man refuses to believe this because he cannot see how a god could be walking among them in a world so lifeless (McCarthy 172). To the stranger, it is simply impossible to see goodness in this world because he has lost everything. The man, however, the the world still contains goodness due to the love that he has for his

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