Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

Mccarthy creates a bleak post apocalyptic society through the use of imagery. He describes a world where there is no wildlife and all that’s left are the ashes. “The road was gullied eroded and barren. The bones of dead creatures sprawled in the washes. Middens of anonymous trash”(177). While the man and the boy travel the road, they rarely come across other living things. The boy even shows a lack of knowledge about animals, constantly asking his father questions about them. They always have to keep moving due to the constant threat of danger. Their nomadic lifestyle prevents them from becoming attached to anything. This gives the feeling of absolute isolation. Throughout the novel, the man often has dreams of life before. His dreams are described in vivid colors, "walking in a flowering wood where birds flew before them he and the child and the

Imagine a world where the skies are grey and the ground is torn to pieces. Where there is no civilisation present, nor another human being to be seen. Where the feeling of hunger influences you to consider the idea of human flesh filling your insides and persuading you to do so. A world infested with murder, crime and despair- which have now become necessary for survival. Imagine the air thick with black clouds towering over your very essence and having to muddle through 10 feet of snow and a strong gust of wind. A world where all faith should be gone, but amiss all bad things, it continues to linger through the eyes of the youth. Being able to see the light when your surroundings are pitch black signifies that humanity has not been lost completely. Although, the man knows in his heart that death is inevitable and dangerously close, he continues to live for the sake of the boy whom he believes carries the final hope for humanity.

McCarthy writes, “I want to be with you. You cant. Please. You cant. You have to carry the fire. I dont know how to. Yes you do. Is it real? The fire? Yes it is. Where is it? I dont know where it is. Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there. I can see it” (pg. 278-279). Here, the lack of punctuation marks are prominent features of McCarthy’s writing style. One can infer that by doing this, he emphasizes the struggle and hardship of the current world, and how the civilities of the preapocalyptic world are no longer deemed significant in the present society. The dialogue between the man and the boy comprise of no quotation marks, which make it difficult for the reader to understand who is speaking which words. On the other hand, McCarthy structures the interactions between the man and the boy in a manner that it is almost poetic-like. Furthermore, the simplistic nature of the dialogue allows for interpretation of the raw emotion that is present in the text. Fear, lack of confidence, love, and fatigue are common emotions that the man and the boy inflect through their nightmarish journey on the road. “Carrying the fire” is a phrase that is used frequently in the novel. One can assume that the phrase is referring to having optimism in the goodness of humanity. Unfortunately, many of the inhabitants of this gruesome practice repulsive lifestyles including, but not limited to, cannibalism, rape, unprovoked battery, murder, and theft.

The sense of survival is a factor of the natural way of life. Every living being is conditioned to think that one must do whatever it takes to maintain their own physical well-being at any certain point in time. This is immensely apparent with the character development in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. The father and the son share a special bond that makes them inseparable. The strong father and son relationship is a conduit of hope that helps convey the idea that survival is vital in the apocalyptic world they live in.

Both The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Empties by Jess Row are apocalyptic stories that describe the state of human civilization after the annihilation of civil society. Whereas in The Road civil society is destroyed and remains defunct after the apocalypse, The Empties tells of a people who are able to bounce back and reestablish their society. Many people today live their lives aimlessly, squandering their time day by day, partaking in life’s pleasures, and living for their own selfish reasons. McCarthy and Row bring attention to the selfishness and self-absorption that plagues today’s teens by showing two different possible scenarios following an apocalyptic event, resulting from a fundamental difference

Cormack McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is set in a post apocalyptic world, where humanity is struggling to survive. Through his simplistic writing style and powerful symbolism, McCarthy tells a story about the human condition as well as what it truly means to be human. Though it is set in a wasteland this novel still manages to project hope through the love of a boy and his father. The following passages are quotes that spoke to me stylistically or symbolically while I was reading.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy details a post-apocalyptic world with mysterious origins. While there are many questions about this world, the reader is left to their own imagination to determine how it got that way. Within this world, there is a man and a boy, father and son trying to make their way and survive until they can find a safe haven that may or may not exist. The see many things along the way and the man instills in the boy that it is important to remain a good guy and always “carry the fire”. Carrying the fire refers to the light inside of you that makes you who you are and may also carry the “goodness” of human nature. Inevitably, the man meets his fate via a mysterious illness leaving the boy on his own. The boy is then introduced to a family that has been following them knowing that the man was not well and the boy would need someone to look after him.

In the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy (published 2006), a young boy and his father set out on a journey in a dangerous, deadly, post apocalyptic society where everyone is out for themselves. With cannibalism all around, the son and his father fight to stay alive. Not many people survived the unknown event that occured, making it difficult for difficult to trust anybody and to find the items they need. Most of the people at still survive are what they call the “bad people” causing the boy and his father conquer evil and survive on their own. Throughout the novel, the father cares for his son and protects him at all costs. In the most difficult of situations, good people will focus on others more than themselves because they poses love and kindness.

Heros… We hear on the news all the time that, this person is a hero for doing xyz, or this person is a hero of doing a different xyz; Well one author decided to write about a hero, a made up hero. This hero isn’t superman, or batman, nor does this hear even have a hero sounding name, to some people they can’t imagine this person ever being a hero because they don’t know him. This hero is Papa from the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

The Road: Love Papa and the boy only chose to live because they both still had one shred of hope; that the other was still alive. In The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, love was very necessary in survival and happiness. A father and his son traveled the world together on foot, helping each other solve problems and making up for each other’s weaknesses. They barely ever fought, even through all of their hardships, demonstrating how much Papa and the boy loved each other. Love helped Papa and the boy keep moving forward even despite the hopelessness and violence surrounding them.

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me” says Joshua Graham, who, although a video game character, speaks words of wisdom on the subject. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road develops characters who frequently utilize fire on their post-apocalyptic Earth for warmth, cooking, and protection. These usages are evidently essential for endurance, but the story also presents this element in a more significant manner. The boy and his father consistently mention the phrase “carrying the fire” throughout their incessant journey. Contributing to an insightful meaning of the entire novel, the fire is a symbol of humanity’s residual hope in survival and morality.

The encounters and interactions the man and boy had while on the road help develop McCarthy’s larger theme of humanity losing its selflessness when it’s in danger. For example, while the man and the boy are traveling to the coast they come across a burnt man, half-dead lying in the road. After some observation, the boy asks the man if they could “help him” but is continuously shot down by his father who repeatedly tells him to “stop it” (McCarthy 50). The Road’s setting is one of the strongest over the weak, those who can’t survive for themselves they simply won’t. This burnt man, who was struck by lightning, is an example of that as he is now in no condition to scavenge for food and medical supplies and will probably just die where he currently sits. The boy, realizing this, wanted to do something to give the man even a small chance at survival, but the man knew he was a lost cause and should be left to die. The boy and his overwhelming desire to help the dying man is representative of old society and its pressure to help those with lesser than you, ideals that were result of religious codes and churches. But in a world where none of that matters or is present, the man is what humanity has become, selfish being whom only care about

Life and death are inherently different, but inextricably intertwined. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, the wilted landscape still holds remnants of how the world functioned before the apocalypse occurred, though they exist only if the traveler on the Road knows where to look and what to believe. To show the intricate, interdependent relationship between life and death, McCarthy uses flashbacks for direct comparison and contrast between the past and present along with symbolism in one of the most notable sections of the book: the waterfall scene.

The novel The Road, written by author Cormac McCarthy, is a prime example of the extent that cruelty in human nature can reach. The novel follows the story of a man and his son travelling across a barren landscape after a post-apocalyptic event and the struggles that they encounter. This will be discussed by concentrating on theme, characterisation and setting.

The Road American playwright, screenwriter and novelist, Cormac McCarthy, authored a classic post- apocalyptic novel in the year 2006, which was entitled as “The Road”. The novel was based on the story of a father, who had set out on a journey along with his very young son. The author has shown that the earth is totally destroyed due to some natural cataclysm and there is no more life remaining on the earth, except the cannibals and some of the scavengers. The father and son continue their journey in search of food, shelter and clothing also. Their search of food and shelter is successful at times; however they always keep searching for more and more clothes, as it was too cold for them to carry on their journey with a small collection of clothes