Preview

Review Notes on the Road

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1222 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Review Notes on the Road
Secular Scripture and The Road- Thomas H. Schaub

Mainly focus’ on the religious symbolism in the road, rather the lack of religion in the road.

Schaub -begins with the illusion of Dante’s inferno, and this propels us to read it as a quest rather than a story.

The conversation with the boy and The whole journey is just for the boy and the survival of the boy.

Shaub refers to the Boy as God or jesus, thus being divine ‘The status of the boy-the ethical and religious implications of his character- rises abruptly in the last twenty pages of the novel “I am the one”’ two possible meanings from that quote, either the boy has realized he will survive his father, or secondly and less likely he has realized the divinity of the father. To further support this “there was light all around the boy” (177)

The changing status of the boy and father; the changing roles. “though still young, the boy is old enough to question his father”
“the father retains enough authority that the boy seems to take his fathers word.”

“Maps of the world in its becoming” Ashley Kunsa

The road is a linguistic journey toward redemption, the search for meaning and pattern in a seeming meaningless world.
The post apocalyptic paining gives new meaning, it has changed everything that has existed from the old world. This new meaning gives hope and salvation.
The father and child lack proper names, from the beginning are labeled as the good guys. They are good guys because of their ethics and morals, such as not resorting to cannibalism. This separates them from the bad guys, from their actions. Within this we can distinguish good from bad, through their actions. 
The father’s actions put into todays standards would be seen as unethical or unjustifiable but have been put forward for the sake of the boy.
Post apocalyptic, no place or location, forcing the reader to thing of places, not only the world as it was but as it will be. Meanings of the past world changed to suit the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the first chapter of “Along the Indian Road” we are introduced to what the road is and holds. The author explains the road as being at all ends of the spectrum. The comparisons he made where so detailed and dramatic. I enjoyed the description “Here are the highest most beautiful mountains in the world and the dullest plains stretching in the shimmering heat”. Everyone along the road is from a different culture or belief. He says that most of the population are Hindu.…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the topic is rivers and roads, Crummey uses literal imagery to discuss and help readers visualize the seriousness and sincerity of the roads, as he writes, “Consider the earnestness of pavement,” (Crummey, 1). The literal imagery appeals to our senses by describing the road and evoking the image of solid…

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning of the poem, the son refers to the father as “Baba” which shows the affectionate and innocent side of the boy when he is little. The boy is pleading with his dad to tell him a story, yet the roles are reversed later when the father is begging for the son to allow him to tell a story to him. This ironic switch of roles shows the complex relationship as the father is not in the position of authority that he should be in to begin with. The father is supposed to be the leader and role model for the son, and the father is worried about things changing in the future. He sees the point where the son is a grown man and is no longer in need of his father for everything. When the son becomes a man, he will no longer have the same innocent and affectionate characteristics he has now, and he will rely on his father in a different way. However, again the father is failing the son in his present need for a story therefore setting the precedent that the father will not fulfill the needs of the son and that he is not reliable because he cannot live in the moment. Relationships in themselves are complex as they grow and change overtime, but the father is unable to enjoy the different stages of his relationship with his son because he is constantly worried about the…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    More than once, the son seeks approval from his father that they are the "good guys" and that the "bad guys" are those who seek to hurt them--thieves, murderers, and cannibals. A symbol of the goodness in human determination and expectation is the "fire" that the father promises his son they carry. As a "good guy," the father and the son carry the fire internally, meaning that they endeavor to live under all environments. In such a world, however, the struggle between the good guys and the bad guys is not at all flawless. To the father, they are the "good guys," even though the father commits a murder for the protection of his son. The father does not contemplate acting violently in resistance of his son's survival…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During his childhood, the son faces exposure from two very different parents. One of which believes in the preservation of life and moral values, whereas the mother believes in self-destruction and inconsideration towards everyone. Overall, the father has the most profound impact upon the son. Through their southward journey, the father and son share several successful and horrible experiences together. Throughout occasions such as narrowly escaping death from cannibals and plundering an underground bunker, the father and son have grown a strong, loving bond. Unfortunately, this developing relationship does not last forever, due to the father’s terminal illness. After his inevitable death, a stranger graciously offers salvation to the lost son. This salvation comes in the form of a loving, holy community that graciously takes the son in as their own. The 8-year-old boy, manages the unthinkable – survival. The son owes his survival entirely to his father. In a post-apocalyptic world where resources are few and far between, protecting the son from all levels of threats, so that the son can one day become self-sufficient, is nothing short of…

    • 2407 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    He is mainly worried for himself when his father is not around. When the boy was sick he tells his father, “Don’t go away” (247). When his father is dying, the boy tells him: “Just take me with you. Please” (279). He feels as if he cannot survive in such a horrible world without the love and support of his father. The boy eventually finds other “good guys” and realizes it is best for him to move on in the world and not give up.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    These characters are contrasted to cannibals and other vicious characters. First of all, as the title implies, they are on the road walking down south, searching for food. McCarthy spends most part of the novel in the problem of searching for food and sometimes this makes the man and the boy crisis. This exertion of searching for food in scarcity is evidence of goodness contrasted with cannibals who abandon their dignity for their survival. In the dialogue in the Road, the boy said ‘We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?’ and man replied, ‘No. Of course not.’(p 128) After that the boy answered as ‘because we’re the good guys.’ This dialogue shows their goodness relative to cannibals. So, endeavor of finding food can be exertion of not being corrupted and protecting the humanity which seems to remain very slightly in this world. Also, this act demonstrates the existential possibility of not harming others, symbolically suggesting that symbiosis of human with nature can be…

    • 2133 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The father does everything to protect his son. The reason they are traveling to try and a find a better life for him. Throughout their journey he constantly tells him that they are the good guys; he is always making sure his son has food to eat, even if he’ll have a little or none; and watches over him until his last day. The following dialogues show that he has compassion towards his son: “What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you.” (11) and, “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand?” (77). The father sees himself as a guardian angel for his son, and is willing to do anything, even kill, to make sure his son is safe. He would rather die than continue on without his son; he can’t bare to live without him since his son is what keeps him going, he is what keeps him sane. He has no mercy and empathy for others. For example, he makes a man strip his clothes off and takes them, as an act of punishment. The son has to convince him to return the cloths. All in all, the son is what gives the father a reason to rethink his actions, to have emotions, to be…

    • 1306 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    When he tells his father, his father responds, “There is no one to see.” The father than states that, “they must go now”. The boy gets very upset and the father questions, “Do you want to die? Is that what you want?” When the boy responds, “I don’t care,” the father gets upset and expresses to the boy that he, “musn’t say that” (McCarthy 85). This is a primary example of the father reassuring the boy still has hope. The father not only makes sure the boy has hope, he also tries to give the boy hope. He gives the boy hope by telling them they are not going to die soon. This is proven in the novel when the boy asks, “Are we going to die” and the man says, “Sometime. Not…

    • 1836 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The boy and the man continually search among the debris in the aftermath of the cataclysmic event for morsels of food and warmth. Though they are forced to breathe thick ash in the air and travel in constant cold, they continually trudge forward. It is apparent that the father is slowly losing his faith in humanity and their situation, and parts of him wish it could just all be over. They must find food and clean water, and they must constantly hide. There are marauding groups of cannibals who look upon the man and boy as nothing more than meat. The lone bullet in the man’s gun is saved for the boy, who has been instructed on how to kill himself should something happen to the man. This young…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Road Summed up

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Throughout the book the boy probably most often keeps his humanity more so than any other. It’s almost as if without him humanity would cease to exist. "You're not the one who has to worry about everything.” “He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one." (Cormac, 218) I was never very sure if the reason why he wanted to help others was because of who he was as a person or if it was due to the fact that he was just a child and it was matter of his innocence. There are numerous incidences of which this shows. For example, there’s a part in the novel where the man and the boy find a man struck by lightning on the side of the road. The man says that there was nothing that they can do for him. The boy becomes so overwhelmed he begins to cry right there on the spot because he too was helpless in this situation. Earlier they came across an old man by the name of Ely. His age made him fragile and the boy couldn’t help but recognize this. He was so set on feeding this man he had an argument with his father, the only other person he truly has in this world just because he wanted to help another. In the end the boy won, and Ely wound up staying with the…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The boy conveys his controlling behavior to the point of numbering his clothes to ensure rotation, and asking for school assignments well in advance so that he can make up schedules; in short, he plans everything in his life that he can possibly have control over because of he cannot do anything about his family's situation. His father is remembered as an irresponsible man who unintentionally causes problems for his son through his consistently careless actions. The boy realizes he is the complete opposite of his father's personality, but admires the older man's ability to live in the moment, without worrying over consequences.…

    • 480 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The storm of post-apocalyptic novels has taken much of the literary world by storm in the past century or so. This does not stop just there, of course, it branches so far into other media that the storyline of a human life following the collapse of the world as we know it is not at all an unfamiliar one. Movies, video games, and the traditional books have all taken their own look at this interesting offshoot of (science) fiction and have morphed new concepts and perspectives from this one single origin. One such work that exemplifies this is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.…

    • 2253 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elizabeth Baines presents ‘the boy’ in ‘The Compass and the Torch’ as an innocent young child who comes from a broken family and is going through the difficult transition of adjusting to a new father figure. It is clear that the boy is not finding this an easy transition as we see that he is very resistant towards ‘Jim’, the mothers new boyfriend and at the appearance of the father, he idolises him and cannot help making comparisons between the two men. He rejects Jim because of an undying loyalty towards his father. The boy had to force ‘himself to acknowledge Jims kindness and affirmation’. This reveals that he acknowledges the fact that Jim is trying to build a relationship between the two but he refuses to accept this because in his eyes, Jim has replaced his father.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Both sets of parents are also blind in this story to many facts. At the beginning of the story, the parents that adopted him are blind to the fact that he has a curse of him killing his father…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays