The Road by Cormac McCarthy

620 Words2 Pages

“Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph.” Throughout the history of mankind the issue of civility has been incredible in its divisive powers. In ancient civilizations civility was attributed to nobility, those born into wealthy and upper class families were seen as more civilized while those born without distinction were deemed savage or less than civilized. As humanity has progressed the concept of civility has changed from a birthright to a difference of ideology. Nevertheless, it all comes down to one notion; humans are beasts like any other creature. Food, shelter, group security, and reproduction are the primal drives of humans; the only distinction is that we are regulated by laws and rules that are meant to be followed. We are savages, and civilization is only a thin pretence. As soon as this pretence breaks down, be it during war, or natural disasters, or rioting, it is then when humanity is revealed. The award-winning novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, details the nume...

Sickness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy
241 Words | 1 Pages
It’s the year 2028, and the world we used to know as bright and beautiful is no longer thriving with light. A disease similar to the plague broke out and caused great havoc. Although it may seem like forever ago, sickness spread only a few years ago. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a man and his son who fortunately survived this sickness; although they made it, the struggle to keep going is tough. Before most of the population became deceased, people went insane. They started to bomb houses, burn down businesses and towns, and destroy the environment. Anyone who had the disease was bad blood. Many saw it as the end of the world, which in many cases was true.
Read More
Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer
964 Words | 2 Pages
The tone is set in this chapter as Krakauer uses words to create an atmosphere of worry, fear, and happiness in McCandless’s mind. “The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that cares nothing for hope or longing”(4). McCandless is on the path of death, which creates worry and fear for the young boy. “He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited,” (6). Alex is very excited and care free, which Krakauer used to his advantage in making the tone of Alex’s mind happy. The author creates tones to make the reader feel the moment as if the readers were sitting there themselves. Krakauer uses dialogue and setting to create the mixed tones of this chapter. As one can see from the quotes and scenery the author uses tones that are blunt and are to the point to make the reader feel as though the emotions are their own. Krakauer uses plenty of figurative language in this chapter. He uses figurative language to support his ideas,to express the surroundings, and tone around the character. To start the chapter he uses a simile describing the landscape of the area, “…sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed,” (9). This statement is used to make reader sense the area and set the mood for the chapter. The use of figurative language in this chapter is to make a visual representation in the readers mind. “It’s satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain” (9).
Read More
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
784 Words | 2 Pages
The Road, a post-apocalyptic, survival skills fiction book written by Cormac McCarthy and published in 2006 is part of the Oprah Winfrey book club. During an interview with Oprah, McCarthy answered questions about The Road that he had never been asked before because pervious to the interview he had never been interviewed. Oprah asked what inspired the heart breaking book; it turns out that McCarthy wrote the book after taking a vacation with his son John. While on the vacation he imagined the world fifty years later and seen fire in the distant hills. After the book was finished, McCarthy dedicated it to his son, John. Throughout the book McCarthy included things that he knows he and his son would do and conversations that he thinks they may have had. (Cormac). Some question if the book is worth reading for college course writing classes because of the amount of common writing “rule breaks”. After reading and doing assignments to go along with The Road, I strongly believe that the novel should be required for more college courses such as Writing and Rhetoric II. McCarthy wrote the book in a way to force readers to get out of their comfort zones; the book has a great storyline; so doing the assignments are fairly easy, and embedded in the book are several brilliant survival tactics.
Read More
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
1231 Words | 3 Pages
Antoinette's story begins when she is a young girl in early nineteenth- century Jamaica. The white daughter of ex-slave owners. Five years have passed since her father, Mr. Cosway, reportedly drunk himself to death. As a young girl, Antoinette lives at Coulibri Estate with her widowed mother, Annette, her sickly younger brother, Pierre.Antoinette spends her days in isolation Discontent, however, is rising among the freed blacks, who protest one night outside the house. Bearing torches, they accidentally set the house on fire, and Pierre is badly hurt. The events of the night leave Antoinette dangerously ill for six weeks. She wakes to find herself in Aunt Cora's care. Pierre has died. When Antoinette is seventeen, Mr. Mason announces on his visit that friends from England will be coming the following winter. He means to present Antoinette into society as a cultivated woman, fit for marriage. Richard Mason offered him £30,000 if he proposed. Desperate for money, he agreed to the marriage. After the marriage everything seemed to be fine but then after a while Antoinettes husband started drifting away from her. This drove her crazy and made her question her marriage. The story ended with Antoinette locked up in England in Rochesters house.
Read More
Civil or Savage
595 Words | 2 Pages
We are each born with human nature, taught to be civil, but we watch evil. Most people would say that we are each born different, but we are actually all born with the same human nature that makes each of us do the things we do. In the book Lord of the Flies the author, Ellie Golding, is just coming out of World War 2, which has a great influence on how she feels about civilization. When a person commits an act of evil we blame that person, but have we ever thought that maybe they learned it from our “civil” community? Look at the lines separating human nature, civilization, and evil, you might find that it is not as firm as you think it is.
Read More
The Stranger by Albert Camus
1166 Words | 3 Pages
Albert Camus has his own toolbox of literary devices when it comes to accentuating the theme of The Stranger, one of them being his unique sense and use of secondary characters. Whether major or minor, every character in the book serves a purpose, and corroborates the theme in some form of fashion. Camus describes his secondary characters as foiling Meursault in one aspect or another, and thus, shining light on Meursault’s characteristics. Whether through close connections like familial relationships (Maman) and friendships (Salamano, Raymond, and Marie), or through bonds as distant as people he briefly converses with (Chaplain), or even so much as complete strangers (Perez and unidentified lady at the restaurant), characters that Meursault encounters foil and therefore, emphasize many aspects of his nature. Furthermore, because Meursault aptly embodies Camus’s ideology of Absurdism, emphasizing Meursault through secondary characteristics simply highlights Camus’ doctrine and theme of the book.
Read More
Civilization View On Civilization
1441 Words | 3 Pages
Sigmund Freud, a psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century, enumerates the fundamental conflicts between civilization and the individual in his writing, Civilization and its Discontents. He asserts that an individual’s primary discontent originates from civilization’s demand for conformity contrary to the individual’s search for instinctual freedom. Freud continues and postulates that the demands and laws forced onto the individual create the “super ego.” This super ego puts limits on one’s intrinsic desires and restricts them from pursuing different opportunities of happiness. Similar to Freud’s assessment of civilization, Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher and cultural critic, illustrates a similar evaluation on communal living in his major work, On the Genealogy of Morals. In this writing, Nietzsche begins to examine the origin and meaning of different moral concepts, starting with “good”, “evil”, and “bad.” In this process he states that noblemen defined these terms and that the people around them are you talking about the noblemen or people in general? influenced and ultimately determined what was “bad” or “good.” While both thinkers addressed several different concepts, they had similar views on the influence of civilization and the unintentional effects it had on the individuals living in that society. While both Freud and Nietzsche discuss the pow...
Read More
Responsibility In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy
562 Words | 2 Pages
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.
Read More
The Boat, by Alistair Macleod
843 Words | 2 Pages
A household is a precious and sensitive system of a group. Everyone has a role and responsibilities and even if someone took a sliver of more than the rest the balance could be broken. In the short-story “The Boat” written by Alistair MacLeod, the mother controls decisions in the house and abuses them even if they are not for the better of the house. She refuses to accept the daughter’s gifts, she discourages her family towards getting a better education and she married their father and pressured him to be a sailor. Though these decisions are what she feels is right, it does not work out for the rest of the family members. The mother’s stubbornness towards change and education caused the state of desperation in the house-hold.
Read More
Balance In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy
1290 Words | 3 Pages
Balance is a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions. Without balance, there would be an overload of one element and a lack of another. There would be no sense of harmony or feelings of wholenesses. In his novel The Road, author Cormac McCarthy displays a great deal of balance. His oeuvre involves both a positive and uplifting view of humanity, and one of darkness and pessimism. Sometimes McCarthy writes about one of the main characters in the novel, a young boy, and how much tenderness and compassion he posses inside him. Other times McCarthy mentions the people that have turned to cannibalism in order to survive and the horrendous acts of cruelty that they have performed to other human beings. In addition,
Read More
The Usual Suspects by Christopher McQuarrie
1121 Words | 3 Pages
that things will not always be as they seem and we wont know the story
Read More
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
1857 Words | 4 Pages
Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who ventured off to Alaska and tried to survive in the wild. McCandless grew up in Annandale, Virginia where he attended school and made very good grades, rarely bringing home anything below an A. His father, Walt worked for NASA for a little while, before starting his own business with Chris’s mother, Billie, out of their own home. They worked hard and for long hours to get the business up and running and it finally paid off. The McCandless family was wealthy, but had many emotional problems. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, Chris McCandless donated twenty-four thousand dollars from his savings account to charity, changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, and then disappeared. This book tells the story of his life and travels. Some critics say that Chris McCandless was a very admirable person. He was a brave man that followed his dreams. However, given all of his flaws, attitudes, and actions, he is un-admirable. McCandless walked into the wild very unprepared and stubborn. He also treated his family poorly as well as anyone who got emotionally close to him. Chris was additionally too impressionable in a way that he admired authors along with the books they wrote, and tried to imitate them. He was very rebellious in his actions as well, and did not try to change the world or help others.
Read More
The Town and the City by Jean-Louis Kerouac aka Jack
683 Words | 2 Pages
Jean-Louis Kerouac aka Jack was born on March 12th, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts to Leo and Gabrielle who were immigrants from Quebec, Canada. Kerouac learned to speak French at home then he learned how to speak English at school. His father owned a print shop and his mother stayed a home. In the summer of 1926 Jack's older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at nine years old. The family was overcome by grief and became more involved in church as is shown in some of his books. Jack loved to play sports and read on his free time. He was on the basketball, track, and football team. Even though he wanted to start writing he felt that playing a sport wound help him more in his future. During the great depression his family struggled financially and his father became an alcoholic and gambler while his mother got a job at a local shoe store to provide for her family. In 1936 the family was devastated by the Merrimack River flooding that wiped out there printing shop which only increased his fathers alcohol addiction and the family lived live in poverty, but jack shined in his sports as he was the star running back at his high school Lowell High. With this he obtained a college scholarship. After graduating Lowell in the year 1939 he received his scholarship to Columbia University. But before attending university he went to Horace Mann preparatory school for boys for a year in Brooklyn at the age of 17.(biography.com) During his freshman year at Columbia university he cracked his tibia. He also argued to mush with his coach, Coach Lou Little, who benched him. While being benched jack began writing for the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper with sports articles and later joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. As his footb...
Read More
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
1413 Words | 3 Pages
The Quiet American is written by Graham Greene. This novel is about the conflict between Alden Pyle and Thomas Fowler. The novel’s events have already taken place and Fowler is the narrator of the story. Thomas Fowler, a man in his fifties, is a British journalist who has been covering the events taking place in the French War in Vietnam for over two years. He chooses to remain neutral between the sides of the battles he covers. He meets Alden Pyle, a young American who is well educated and secretly works in a secret agent service. Pyle has read numerous books written by a scholar named York Harding, who believes that a “Third Force” is needed in Vietnam, which is neither communism nor colonialism. Pyle is opposite of Fowler because Pyle is a believer of the “Third Force” and also, Pyle is naïve. Pyle fails to recognize the consequences of a majority of his actions. The conflict between these two not only involve their opposing beliefs but it also comes from their relationship with Phuong, Fowler’s live-in lover. Pyle and Fowler meet at a hotel called the Continental, which is where Pyle also meets Phuong. Pyle is captivated by Phuong and has the chance to dance with her. While Fowler is covering a battle for his journalism of the war, Pyle goes to tell him immediately that he has been in love with Phuong ever since he met her and that he wants to marry her. Fowler is annoyed by Pyle’s confidence that Phuong will leave him for Pyle. In an incident at a guard tower, Pyle saves Fowler’s life after he breaks his leg as they attempt to escape from soldiers. After hearing rumors about Pyle, Fowler starts to investigate Pyle’s actions and finds out that he is importing military supplies from the United States into Vietnam. Later, while ...
Read More
The Killers by Ernest Hemingway
979 Words | 2 Pages
"The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway is a story based upon Hemingway's view of the big city in the late 1920's. During the era of prohibition whoever controlled the flow of alcohol controlled the city. Unfortunately, the police were powerless against man thirst for booze. The Mafia also expanded into the bookie field, and if someone didn't pay up or double crossed the Mafia they were taken out. Hemingway was unfamiliar with this city scene and we can see a very strong correlation between him and one of his characters, Nick Adams. Nick was a newcomer to the city, completely unfamiliar with the boldness of disregard for the law that was present. The Theme that I feel Hemingway is trying to convey is how much corruption and disregard for the law there was in the late 1920's.
Read More

Open Document

Wait a second!

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Sickness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer