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Essay On Cormac Mccarthy The Road

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Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was one of my favorite fiction books that I’ve read in awhile. Although it was only written and published in 2006, his writing structure makes his work seem like an old-time classic. McCarthy’s tale of a post-apocalyptic world where a father and son’s bond are still inseparable motivates me to have the same relationship with my children someday. After some sort of worldwide destructive event that was never explained, food, humans, and hope is scarce. The names of the protagonists are never given, maybe to allow the reader to connect better to the characters, or as a device to promote the continuing theme of mystery throughout the book since a name is the most basic form of knowing someone. The pair travels somewhere in Southern United States in an attempt to get to the coast while avoiding starvation and cannibals. Both the father and son dream of what the world was like, whether it was real or imagination, and the man’s recall of his wife committing suicide in order to avoid torture haunts him throughout their journey. The …show more content…

Yet by the time the father is dying, he recognizes that his son is wise and strong enough to survive on his own. Thus, another purpose of surviving for the man was not to survive with the son, but to last long enough to teach his son survival skills before he died. The boy lives and is implied to continue to do so after meeting “good guys” after his father dies. The boy is the most caring person in the book who has too much trust for every human they come in contact with. The boy’s innocence resembles a light in a dark world and the man views his son as a divine character (such as an angel) because of his purity. The man never tells his son that he loves him, but instead shows it through his actions such as leaving the boy his last meal, giving the boy a Coke, or just staring at him in

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