“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy is a journey story set in the setting of an, assumed, post-nuclear war world. The plot of the novel is about a father and his son traveling down a road seeking others like themselves who “carry the fire”. The only destination the author mentions the pair traveling, is ‘South’.…
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…
Fire: typically a symbol denoting destruction, chaos, and negative connotation is personified as an image of both physical and metal assistance throughout the bleak and dispirited journey between the man and his son. Ash contrasts fire; symbolizing displeasure, hopelessness, and complete termination. Cormac McCarthy insinuates fire and ash in The Road to construct the empowering tone, graceful yet disheartening atmosphere, and a sinister setting of which the journey encompasses.…
“There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance”-Orison Swett Marden. This quote speaks true, that to have courage, we need confidence and assurance. In the book The Road, a symbol often referred to is the father of the son. He represents the idea of an older figurehead helping you along your way, and reassuring you. This symbol also helps a theme function and come up.…
In Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, a father and his son try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where the majority of people have turned to cannibalism and the environment is twisted and dark. Despite their being glimpses of hope and the Son being showed as the next Messiah, a message of hope could in no way be conveyed in the book. The book is depressing, sad, and makes readers feel grateful for what they have and that they do not have to go through what the protagonists face everyday day.…
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. The Road is set in a grim atmosphere. It is after apocalypse world where all signs of life are extinct. People and animals are starving, and predatory groups of savages wander around with pieces of human bodies stuck in their teeth. It is both oppressive and disheartening. McCarthy sets an atmosphere like one mediately after the world wars. It is not far-fetched to imagine the possibility of such a sad environment today. The novel tells a story of an unnamed man and his son in who struggle to survive in this horrific environment. I feel that the language in the novel is verbose. McCarthy is blunt in his descriptions. He uses repeated struggles and similar scenes forcing the reader to share the tough experience of the characters. I agree with the author that The Road is the picture of a post-apocalyptic world. I also agree with the opinion that suffering might never end, like the novel indicates through imagery at the very end. The author manages to combine happy moments with sad ones even though the sad ones takes the larger share. In addition, he accomplished his aim of having an audience that is glued to the book all along sine it is both engaging and informative. The author has a perception that the world is composed of more bad things than the good ones. This novel will be important to me as I explore the themes of post-apocalyptic fears and human struggles. However, I do feel that he leans too heavily on sadness…
Our lives do not always go as planned. Obstacles can unexpectedly ruin lives and change every aspect of it, for better, or for worse. We are all on this road of our lives just trying to find the right path to travel on to survive to live onto the next day. Along this road, many learn abilities and attributes inside themselves they never knew they had, no matter how difficult the journey may be. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Papa and the boy travel a long way and go through many obstacles which in the end changed the boys’ life, prioritized their actions, and helped them find the light to guide them onto their next destination.…
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…
The boy in The Road is a shining example of how to fight a world filled with fear and spite with love and compassion. Through his selfless works of charity, as well as the concern he voices for not only the people he loves, but also those he does not know, the boy in The Road gives hope to what is left of humanity. He is truly a “good guy” and “carries the fire” for the whole world to…
The structure in this poem gives us a feeling of the old man’s desperation to dig up another story first portraying his uncomfort, “The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.” His anxiousness escalates, “soon, he thinks, the boy will give up on his father.” You see his attitude further rise when he says, “he sees the day this boy will go. Don’t go!” Finally you see his desperation reach a high when he says, “Are you a god, the man screams, that I sit mute before you?” The poem made you feel the desperation of the father through the structure because you could feel him getting more and more frustrated. This frustration in him not being able to satisfy his sons want for a new story gives us a picture of the love the father has for his child. A parent just wants to make their child happy and his anger when he cannot accomplish this show us that he has genuine love for the son.…
Even in the catastrophic atmosphere Cormac McCarthy creates in his novel The Road, love influences a man and his son to have faith in their survival. In this post-apocalyptic world, love is the only motivation they have in what is left of their world. Love between the man and his son motivates them to keep traveling down this broken road. Without the love that is made between the man and his son, having faith in their survival would be hard to find.…
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world following the path of a Father and Son. McCarthy is a highly celebrated award-winning author. He is 78 years old and has an 8-year-old son – an uncommon circumstance – underlining that for him, death is imminent and prompting him to consider the ideas discussed in his novel. In The Road, the father is undergoing a crisis of faith and so adopts an Existentialist view and creates meaning through his son – who therefore influences many of his actions. I found McCarthy’s use of techniques such as juxtaposition and antithesis that counter the macabre images throughout the book with those of love between the father and Son both repulsive and fascinating at the same time.…
People often make sacrifices in order to benefit someone or something else. What people sacrifice illuminates their values and morals. In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the main character has to make sacrifices that allow him to take care of his young son. This story is set in a burned, post-apocalyptic United States and follows a father and son duo as they endeavor to survive in the harsh, new environment. From an objective standpoint, the man’s son is certainly an inconvenience when it comes to the man’s survival. The son is another mouth to feed, another person with whom the man has to share the supplies he scavenges, and another body that the man needs to protect from both human and non-human afflictions. However, the man is still willing to sacrifice an easier survivalist lifestyle for the benefit of his son. By having the man sacrifice his personal survival advantages in order to provide for his son, McCarthy depicts the man’s immeasurable love for his son and conveys the tremendous strength of father-son bonds.…
“Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad.” There are some people who do not have the opportunity to have a father in their life. Someone they can call dad. Like the men in the work’s “Daddy” Sylvia Plath and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. A similarity of the works is that that the fathers were admired by their children. In contrast, In “Daddy” the fathers was abusive and in “My Papa’s Waltz” the father wasn’t abusive towards the son.…
Set in an almost lifeless post-apocalyptic world, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy follows a father and son’s struggle for survival through chaotic situations while walking towards south on “the road” with very limited resources, where they encounter numerous difficulties, including having to deal with cannibals who patrol the road; food shortages which cause them to have to go on for days without eating; and inclement weather conditions. The author uses the obstacles the father and son face on the road as a metaphor for the different hardships humans encounter in life, in order to demonstrate that adversity allows humans to explore humanity and human values, thus discovering their true self.…