...The book “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy is a post-apocalyptic fiction book. It’s a story about a man with a young boy walking south to find there way to the coast for a presumed better life through a nuclear winter. Although the book doesn’t state where it’s taking place, one can infer that it’s somewhere in the United States. The major characters of this book are the man and the young boy. The man is the opposite of an open book, personality wise. He has no one to talk to about his thoughts because him and his son are alone. His words are plain and simple, yet interesting. All he does is care for the boy the best way he can. Whenever they encounter strangers he is stern because he wants to keep his son safe. The boy on the other hand voices his thoughts. If he has a question, he will ask it. The boy as well cares about his father. The boy is strong when need to be, but is also compassionate towards strangers. The whole book is based on the journey of both the father and child. The whole conflict of the book is that the boy and the father are trying to get to the coast by surviving the horror of storms, winter, cannibalism, and most of all, the...
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...Cormac McCarthy ends The Road with these lines to give beauty to memories long since forgotten, and to tell the story of both the earth and mankind. Throughout the novel, the author uses descriptions as a way to add beauty the world. During the last paragraph of the novel, the author describes the appearance of trout, long since gone from the world: “You could see standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. Polished and muscular in torsion”(McCarthy 286). Trout, are talked about in the story fleetingly when the man and the boy are looking for food, and they are not often brought up again. The author uses the description of the Trout to give a sense of beauty of the world that we are living in. By using the world around us to paint a picture in the reader's head, the author better establishes a sense of wanting to reclaim the world that use to be. Earlier in the novel the author uses the same technique when describing...
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...The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is a novel that is about a captivating tale of survival in a world infested with crime, destruction, and misery. “Gripping, heart-rending story, which explores the depths of despair and savagery beside the heights of love, tenderness and self-sacrifice.”, as the New York Times has described it. Cormac McCarthy shows a dark and scary version of humanity that might come to be true in the future. The Road was published in 2006 and is a national bestseller. It is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world that is extremely dreary and gray. McCarthy narrates the story of a father and his son in an unknown location after a horrible event has happened. They must attempt to survive in a world where suffering surrounds them. The father and son go into a nation that is overridden by cannibalism and murder. The goal they have is to survive. The Road is extremely repetitive novel. I started the novel with very high expectations and as I continued to read, I came to realization that I did not like it. This book had a decent idea but I did not enjoy the format in which it was written which really made my dislike for the book to develop. A sentence will start out really simple and McCarthy will...
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...Hope Where All Hope Is Lost The novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, is a post-apocalyptic story that consists of underlying biblical references. McCarthy, with or without intention, incorporates themes and stories directly related to the Christian Bible. The boy and the man are living in a seemingly godless world trying to survive, and the novel describes this as “On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.” (McCarthy 32). McCarthy creates a post-apocalyptic world in which a man and a boy are attempting survive off of hope, and he uses biblical references to exude this hope on their journey....
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...AP Literature and Composition 14.9.14 The Road’s Question Critic Roland Barthes states, “Literature is the question, minus the answer,” which is present within the novel ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy, who depicts the story of a father and son in a post-apocalyptic world. As the novel develops and the characters grow, McCarthy’s use of imagery and symbolism help create the question of whether or not ‘humanity can survive in a world that has lost everything.’ The man and the boy attempt to find a place that is not overrun with ‘bad guys’ and journey to the south where their hope of warm weather and safety may or may not be found. On this journey, vivid images and events about the people who have survived are seen through their trip. Due to the apocalypse that has struck the world, a lack of food, water, and safety are equivalent, if not trivial to the rape, murder, and cannibalism that has become a certain norm for the remaining humans. Unfortunetly those lack of rights and crimes happen in society today which comes to show that humanity, at its very core, is not much better than it would be in the novel’s situation. However, in the book, the ‘bad guys’ take these crimes and lack of law to an extreme not seen in life today, as seen by the mother of the boy, “No, I'm speaking the truth. Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They'll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you wont face it.” The fear of death and...
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...Throughout Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing novel, The Road, he depicts the precarious journey of an unnamed father alongside his innocent son as they endeavor the post-apocalyptic world in desperate hopes of survival. After an unnamed disaster sweeps the Earth, the diligent pair fights to navigate the “cold and dark and heavy” (19) terrain, as they travel South in hopes of reaching the coast where they will be “warm at last” (147). The dynamic pair faces challenges of nature and man alike as they traverse the lifeless landscape, encountering vicious packs of cannibals as they become meek prey to the blood-thirsty beasts. They depend on their vitalizing love to bear the constant, rigorous obstacles they face in the “stark, black, burn[t]” (8) world....
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...In the novel The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy, a young boy and his father are in a post-apocalyptic society with very few people and available resources, and trying to survive. They travel along a main road, heading towards the coast, and encounter some benefits, yet many obstacles as well. In this novel, McCarthy illuminates the idea that when people are faced with death, it causes them to realize the small happy moments, because they become more prominent and enjoyable. In this scene from The Road, Papa and the Boy are preparing for their first night after the post-apocalyptic event; beginning to comprehend and adapt to their surroundings. Papa is trying to be protective of his son by staying up until the Boy falls asleep. The Boy is...
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...Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is about a boy and his father and their travels walking south in a post-apocalyptic world. On their journey they face and overcome many challenges together. The father is very loving of his son and would do anything to protect him even if that means killing him to save him torturing from the ravages that also walk the streets. The book often references grey skies or a soot covered ground, this suggests that the ground is covered in ash. McCarthy does not give the boy or man a name or their location but it is presumed that they are in the United states. McCarthy does not give a background explanation as to what happened to the world in which the book took place. Its to my belief that the earth was scorched by solar...
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...The Road by Cormac McCarthy, an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize, show a father and his son trying to survive after the end of the world. McCarthy shows that even in the down moments, people can be strong like what happen to the father even in his bad moments, he was thinking about his son. He shows how the father was patience after he loses his wife, the woman and the boy mother, who appears in the man mind and dreams, and she comments suicide after she gives up from the risky world. McCarthy also shows how love is important between the family, and how they need to respect each other. Also, he shows many conflicts and how the father and son influenced each other in different ways like thinking and trust. In the story,...
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...The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a man and his son walking the roads of America in post-apocalyptic times. The man and this son are faced with many issues. One of the main issues is that it is them two versus the evil of the world that remains. People eating people, death everywhere, and plenty of evil people to look out for. His main goal is to look out and care for his son. Throughout the book you can gather one main point from the events and character development. Even when America is burnt to the ground, people are still exiled. Throughout the novel, the man and the boy are alone walking the streets trying their best to avoid conflict. The boy doesn’t want there to be any violence whatsoever. They are trying to avoid people like...
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...Set in the aftermath of an unnamed apocalypse, Cormac McCarthy's The Road follows a father and son as they travel down the eponymous road attempting to navigate the difficulties of morality while surviving in a world that has lost all vision of society. To this end, the man encourages the boy that they are the “good guys” because they “carry the fire.” The fire is symbolic of what German philosopher Immanuel Kant called the Categorical Imperative, one fundamental principle that guides all of our moral duties by demanding that “one respect the humanity in oneself and in others, that one not make an exception for oneself when deliberating about how to act, and in general that one only act in accordance with rules that everyone could and should obey.” (Jankowiak) As the novel progresses and the...
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...Survival Why do you think McCarthy has chosen not to give his characters names? How do fake names generate character of the man and the boy. In Cormac McCarthy the Road, the man and his son face infinite amount of obstacles throughout the novel in order to keep themselves alive. While reading the road, McCarthy wanted the figures in this book to be universal, so that the reader could imagine him or herself as the boy or man. Doing so allowed reader to have different perspective of being one of the characters. To do this McCarthy did not designate the characters in his book with names, and because of that i was able to connect with the man and the boy more closely on a personal level and have a good idea putting myself in their journey....
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...With any text, the deeper meanings can be interpreted in many different ways. A reader’s belief and experiences all influence how they view and experience a text. In many cases, the interpretation of something may vary so intently that it can become a very controversial thing. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a novel that gives variations in how it is viewed, influenced by their own experiences and beliefs. A reader who is possibly extremely religious and comes to this book after reading the bible may view this book as almost satanic from the ideas brought forward and the actions of the characters. They may also see spiritual and religious references within it which is something, perhaps, a non-religious person would miss. Our own experiences are something that definitely change the way we view the world. If you consider a child reading this book compared to an elder, the book would be read and viewed different. The child, innocent and carefree would sympathise with the boy as he and his actions are of they which they would do. An elder, plagued by life, would understand why the father is how he is as they would have most likely done the same thing. A reader’s personal beliefs and beliefs would differ how the book is regarded. Our own beliefs and values are influenced...
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...Running Head: Biblical Comparison of The Road Biblical Comparison of The Road by Cormac McCarthy Joshua G. West Henry County High School Abstract The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) is a novel that explains the struggles of a father and son as they thrive to survive in a post-apocalyptic society. Cormac McCarthy (2006) put a lot of details into the story and this world, but I believe he did not make up this. There are many clues and links between his story and what the Bible has so say about the rapture and tribulation period. From the beginning of the world they live in, to the characters involved in the novel, Cormac McCarthy’s (2006) novel could be described as parable of what the bible has to say of the end times. However, the novel goes deeper than just a comparison to the end times, it goes into saving your moral values, no matter how difficult your trials are becoming. Biblical Comparison of The Road by Cormac McCarthy Words often have a deeper meaning then what we first see or hear. In Cormac McCarthy’s (2006) prize winning novel, The Road, McCarthy (2006) wrote down the story of a man and his son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Along their journey you see the mother walk out on them, robbers attack them and inner struggle in their own minds. If one takes a closer look at the story, they see several points which could all lead back to a single source and hold a deeper meaning. When facing a tough dilemma, it can be a quite difficult...
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...In Mumuku’s speech, she discussed that life is filled with spontaneous adventures and duties, which determines that the outcome of the journey comes from the experience rather than the destination. She analysed the lessons and tribulations of the experience taken by the characters in the prose fiction novel, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy and, “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame. Mumuku also mentioned that the process of the journeys helps the characters and audience to learn more about ourselves and the world around us. She also discovered the themes or morals, and new encounters in the texts. In the novel, “The Road”, a rhetorical question is used as the technique. The rhetorical question is, “Are we the good guys?”. The composer...
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