In the work The Road by Cormac McCarthy a father and son struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world with evil surrounding them. They always refer to themselves as, “The good guys,” (McCarthy 66) and try to not become evil. They see things like cannibalism as evil, and would rather go hungry than succumb to this evil. The father constantly tries to keep the child’s eyes away from the gruesome scenes that characterize this environment. When thinking of themselves as the good guys they keep from doing any wrong. Erik J. Wielenberg puts it best when he lists the rules of the good guys. He lists them as follows: "1. Don’t eat people. 2. Don’t steal. 3. Don’t lie. 4. Keep your promises. 5. Help others. 6. Never give up." (Wielenberg 4). All of these rules also have Biblical implications behind them. These rules are taught by the father to his son. Although the father does not always follow them. Rule one is the rule that the father and son never break. The rule "Don't eat people," is what makes them different than the entire world. The Biblical reason for this rule is, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God," King James Version, Romans 12:2). They believe that if they do not eat people, like virtually everyone else in this world, that they will not become evil. At one point they are on the brink of starvation when they see what can only be described in the chilling detail as follows, "What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit," (McCarthy 103). When seeing this grizzly sight they do not succumb to scavenging the body, like most others of this land would, but they run away from the sight. This shows that they have true humanity inside of them. The father and son follow rule two "Don't
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
Losing a phone compared to being raped, starved, killed, and eaten in pieces makes everyday life seem not so excruciating. Cormac McCarthy was born July 20, 1933 and is one of the most influencing writers of this era. McCarthy was once so poor he could not even afford toothpaste. Of course this was before he became famous. His lifestyle was hotel to hotel. One time he got thrown out of a $40 dollar a month hotel and even became homeless. This is a man who from experience knows what should be appreciated. McCarthy published a novel that would give readers just that message called The Road. Placed in a world of poverty the story is about a man and his son. They travel to a warmer place in hopes of finding something more than the scattered decomposing bodies and ashes. The father and son face hunger, death, and distrust on their long journey. 15 year old Lawrence King was shot for being gay. Known as a common hate crime, the murderer obviously thought he was more superior to keep his life and to take someone’s life. Believing ideas in a possible accepting world with no conditions is dangerous thought to that person’s immunity to the facts of reality.
In Cormac McCarthy’s Sci-Fi novel, “The Road”, two mysterious people, a father and his curious son, contact survival of the fittest during tragic apocalyptic times. With a shopping cart of food and supplies, they excavate into the remains of tattered houses, torn buildings and other sheltering places, while averting from troublesome communes. In the duration of the novel, they’re plagued with sickness that temporarily unable them to proceed onward. Due to the inopportune events occurring before the apocalypse, the wife of the son and father committed suicide due to these anonymous survivors lurking the remains of earth. The last people on earth could be the ‘bad guys’ as the young boy describes them. In page 47, the wife reacted to this, stating, “Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They'll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won't face it. You'd rather wait for it to happen. But I can't.”
McCarthy established his work to demonstrate the facts of immorality, fear, and the end of American standards in the aftermath of a terrible truth. In the novel, the shortage of resources has driven many survivors to murder, robbery, and even cannibalism. The principle of the narrative is the result of the shocking event that life is considered to nothing more than survival. Therefore, people in the region became very frustrated and are so agreeable under certain situation to hand over the most important concept in their life, which is their humanity and lose everything in order to survive. But, in every time and in every place in the world, we can find individuals who can continue to live stronger and are able to hold onto their morals in life. The father and the boy fight to keep what humanity they have left to be the good guys after they have realized that keeping humanity while surviving is important in someone’s life, While it is easier to turn to evil and become a bad
Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road displays different concepts of nuclear and non-nuclear families throughout the novel. In The Road the reader is introduced to different types of individuals and non-nuclear families and how they succeed in a post-apocalyptic world. Nuclear families are what many consider to be a traditional family, consisting of a mother, father, and children while non-nuclear families are families that are considered untraditional. However, when a traditional family is introduced the reader sees the failures of nuclear families rather than their success while non-nuclear families appear to be more likely to succeed in the sense of survival. Incidents
Doing good deeds makes one a good person, right? One definition of a good person is someone who does good acts but doesn’t truly mean and feel it in their heart. Lane A. Dean Jr. is an example of
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.
While reading the novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy the overall aspect is pessimistic. It is about violence, hardship, death, fear, and the loss of hope. Throughout the book, the two main characters, the man, and boy face up against some of the toughest survival and life lessons. Together they face the woman’s suicide, starvation, the idea of rape, sickness, survival of the apocalypse, and in a sense being hunted like prey by cannibals who also managed to survive the terrifying possibilities that cause Earth to go to chaos. Within the novel, there are hundreds of examples to provide evidence of the pessimistic nature of the novel. Cormac McCarthy who is the author continuously writes in his novel about some of the deepest and darkest situations
It is a novel based in a post-apocalyptic world that revolves around the lives of a father and his son who are just trying to survive. With everything around them destroyed and stripped of life, the two continue their lives hoping for better days to come. They live in a constant state of fear with everyday being spent constantly moving and scavenging for food, all while trying to remain unnoticed. Living in a world where survival is the only goal, the idea of morality has become non-existent. Cannibalism is a major fear because everyone around them is a potential predator. But in this “Barren, silent, godless” (The Road 4) world, where “the days more gray each one then what had gone before” (The Road 1), the man and his son are able to hold their own. Their sense of morality remains intact and they refuse to resort to the lifestyle that the majority of people around them have chosen. They feel as though certain actions are intrinsically wrong and therefore never justifiable. The man refers to himself and his son as the “good guys” and Erik J. Wielenberg explains that they follow a specific moral code. This code includes the rules: Don’t eat people, Don’t steal, Don’t lie, Keep your promises, Help others, and Never give up. (Wielenberg 4). According to these principles, cannibalism is never justifiable. Although the threat of starvation has caused the society to resort to cannibalism, the man and his son promise one another that regardless of the situation, they will refuse to do it. “We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we? ..No matter what?” The father assures his son by repeating, “No. No, matter what” (The Road
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.
...of the North and The Road. Today climate change is a growing problem and as a society, we have yet to open our eyes to the damage we our doing to the environment. Both Daughters of the North and The Road show possible outcomes of what can happen if we avoid the truth and proceed to live our lives in such a self destructive manner. Food shortages are prevalent in many parts of the world, but have yet to heavily impact the United States, by lacking an understanding of the malnutrition others go through, we are unable to contemplate what a large issue world hunger is. The Road shows a extremely drastic example of world hunger, one where cannibalism and killing are common tactics to receive food. Though they seem impossible, distopias such as those in Daughters of the North and The Road are very possible, it is just up to humanity to prevent them from becoming reality.
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 Road by Cormac McCarthy, is set in a post-apocalyptic United States. A father and his son have survived the event that cause the destruction and death of so many. The two of them follow a road that will lead them to the coast where they hope to find and untouched landscape that they can live in. Through their journey they encounter others that are just trying to stay alive, one’s who will steal, enslave them, or even kill them.