The Road by Cormac McCarthy opens to a desolate landscape with “nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before,” (McCarthy 3). The two main characters, named only as “the man” and “the boy”, struggle to survive in this bleak world, encountering a myriad of trials and tribulations along the way. Although the two main characters do not ponder much about the state of their ecosystem, their relationship is symbolic of the relationship between humanity and the environment. Throughout The Road, Cormac McCarthy uses the father-son relationship between the man and the boy to symbolize the current relationship between humanity and our environment. Through his word choice, characterization of the boy as weak, and …show more content…
Throughout The Road, the man and the boy constantly refer to themselves as “good guys” who would never even entertain the notion of cannibalism. The boy is very concerned with being a “good guy,” asking “Are we still the good guys?” after the father kills the man who tries to hurt the boy (McCarthy 77). The “bad guys” in the novel have seemingly lost what we consider to be their humanity. In real life, we can view the “good guys” as the people fighting to protect the environment, much like the man fights to protect the boy. The “bad guys” can be seen as a symbol for those who do not care for the environment and instead use it fulfill their own needs, much like the “bad guys” in the book only are concerned with their own survival. Much of McCarthy’s word choice seems to reflect a struggle between morality and immorality, much like humanity struggles with the morality of what we have done to the planet and where we go from …show more content…
While the boy does seem to be truly good in nature, as he wants to help others and be a “good guy,” the boy can be seen as more than a christ-like image. While “carrying the fire” could refer to a religious mission, it could also refer to the unconditional continuation of the environment. Thus the boy, as a representation of the environment, “carries the fire” to symbolize the hope and the everlastingness of our environment. Furthermore, the boy does not seem like a particularly hopeful or religious figure. Throughout the book he grows apprehensive and jaded towards the world, but is still characterized as a child. These traits are not consistent with a strong, hopeful, and optimistic religious figure who brings hope for the
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
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
In Cormac McCarthy's 2006 play, The Sunset Limited, McCarthy gives the reader very vague information about the setting and surroundings of the conversation that is occurring throughout the entire work. In the opening stage directions, an essential prop to the play is the "door [is] fitted with a bizarre collection of locks and bars" (3). The image of the locks is referenced a multitude of times within the duration of the play, as the two men, Black and White, sit at a table and debate the ways of the world. This conversation stems from Black saving White from committing suicide the previous morning and ineffectively tries to keep White from leaving to end his life. Throughout The Sunset Limited, the locks and bars of the door represent the overarching
McCarthy portrays the man as one sacrificing and doing anything humanly possible for the one he loves which is the boy. The type of love that is visible in this novel isn’t found in usual novels. Instead of portraying just a father and son relationship, it also presents a representative of a self-sacrifice and companionship. Even though, both the father and the son care dearly for the survival of one another, in the first quarter of the novel, the term of euthanasia is suddenly taken into consideration. The father had thoughts of killing his own son, because he said that the truth was that the boy was keeping him alive, “They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he were a good father still it might well be as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death” (8). McCarthy creates through diction how important the boy is to the man for the man feels as if the boy is the only reason he alive. . In this novel McCarthy presents through imagery ...
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a father and son who are surrounded by an apocalyptic world where they are trying to survive. Many of McCarthy’s books are about negative or violent times like Blood Meridian and All The Pretty Horses. McCarthy enjoys writing about the terror in the real world. When writing literature, he avoids using commas and quotation marks.. Many works of literature have a plethora of themes throughout them, in The Road, the theme that sticks out the most is paternal love. The boy is the only thing that stands between the man and death. Aside from that, the father doesn’t kill anyone for food, he only takes the life of people who threaten the boy. Lastly, the man allows the boy have the last of their supplies, food,
The father often uses the phrase “carrying the fire,” to suggest the knowledge the son must inherit from his father in order to one day continue the father's legacy. The father tries to educate his son in goodness, survival, and decency even though all such humanity has been extinguished. His efforts to preserve civilized manners reflect his nurturing and give purpose to his existence. Before the father dies he tells his son that all this fire—warmth, instinct for good, and knowledge—lives inside him: “You have to carry the fire. I don't know how to. Yes, you do. Is the fire real? The fire? Yes, it is. Where is it? I don't know where it is. Yes, you do. It's inside you. It always was there. I can see it” (McCarthy 278-279). The fire has multiple symbolic meanings for the man and the boy. For the man the fire represents the love he has for his son because his son is his reason for continuing. It is also the man’s moral code, his way to refrain from turning evil and committing murder or cannibalism. For the boy the fire symbolizes the kindness he carries even when he has been exposed to evil. Since the boy was born after the catastrophic event, he embodies a sense of purity, an untainted fire within him. Consequently, the son is more naïve and trusting of others than his father. McCarthy's “carrying the fire” functions as a metaphor of knowledge and hope for humanity, the natural instinct to keep going and hope for something better along the
McCarthy wrote the novel in ways that force readers to remove themselves from their comfort zones. He wrote The Road with a lack of punctuation that can make things somewhat confusing for readers. Some critics find that without quotation marks it makes the book hard to follow. But when I read the book I found that after the first fifty pages I understood when the characters were speaking. Finding that I had to pay a little more attention didn’t bother ...
“McCarthy challenges this “liberalism of neutrality” by stripping away all the established political systems and contexts, and leaving us with hunger as the only infrastructure available to the man and the boy on the road they travel.” p.79
...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.”
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 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.
Decisions separate one’s life from another. Robert Frost proves this to be true in his poem “The Road Not Taken.” The metaphorical twist Frost uses in his words and sentence structure emphasizes the importance of different decisions and how those choices will impact the rest of one’s life.
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 ...
This is a wonderful poem with many different themes and ideas. One of the biggest themes is not being afraid to take a chance. Some of the other themes include, not following the crowd, trying new things, and standing for something. This poem stated that the author "took the one (road) less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" so the author is telling the reader that we too should not be afraid to take another path.