Morality In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

The novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a journey between two people, a young boy and his father who are left in a catastrophic, destroyed world. The two travel through the southeastern part of the U.S where the landscapes are on fire. There are abandoned towns and houses, rotting corpses and these two travel with little food, supplies or shelter. They have to escape from people who might seek to steal from them or even kill them for their supplies. The father and the boy are the two travelers among the people remaining on earth who have not been driven to cannibalism, rape and murder. The novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about morality and reveals that when society lacks morals then morality can survive through the individual and
A conflict that is faced by the father is the struggle to hold on to his humanity in a world where only few remains and the world feels like nothingness. The father, who is trying to ensure the safety and well-being of his son, is forced to do many immoral things, but even in a destroyed society where morals are never heard of, can still survive and flourish through the person. It can be first seen when McCarthy says, “The snow lay deep and gray. Already there was a fresh fall of ash on it. He struggled on a few more feet and then turned and looked back. The boy had fallen, He dropped the armload of blankets and the tarp and went back and picked him up. He was already shivering. He picked him up and held him. I’m sorry, he said. I’m sorry”(McCarthy 99). The father is already giving up on living in such a wretched world, but for the love of his son he must endure, struggle and solicitude for his son. Reveals that through the harsh world that is faced upon the father and the boy, they can still survive in hope of a propitious future. Another conflict that is shown in the book is between the savage cannibal and thieves that are against the father and son., it is stated that, “They’re going to kill those people, aren’t they? Yes. Why do they have to do that? I don’t know. Are they going to eat them? I don’t know. They’re going to eat them, aren’t they? Yes. And we couldn’t help them because then they’d eat us too. Yes. And that’s why we couldn’t help them. Yes. Okay” (McCarthy 127). Having to live in a world full of miscreant savages; the father and boy find a place where they believe to have food and supplies for their journey, but instead found themselves with near-death people. The standards of these abhorrent people that are left in the society is unbelievably low, considering that they will devour anything in their presence. This quote