ipl-logo

Comparing Prejudice And Symbolism In Joseph Mccarthy's The Road

663 Words3 Pages

The world that is presented in McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel is very bleak. Nearly all traces of what once lived are gone. It has all been turned into ashes. We are reminded of it again and again throughout the novel: “Everything covered with ash,” and, “The soft ash blowing in loose swirls over the blacktop,” and, “The boy thought he smelled wet ash on the wind,” (McCarthy 140, 2, 297). It is a reminder of that everything has died, that there is nothing left. The setting of The Road allows the novel to say something about the essence of what it is to be human, telling a tale of how people behave when all material things and society itself is gone. The novel says that while personal survival is paramount, it is not everything. It can be …show more content…

The man is more concerned about this than the boy. The boy is willing to give what little they have to help others, showing concern for a man they encounter, and suggesting that they give him some food and even a spoon to eat with (McCarthy 173). Goodness is important to the boy. He “constantly seeks to connect with, and be compassionate toward, strangers,” (Gilbert 42). The man does not like it, for him “other concerns are subsumed under the umbrella of survival,” (Graulund 73). Yet, that is not the whole truth. The man holds the boy’s survival higher than his own. Carroll says that people “envision their lives extending into the future, and they look beyond their own individual lives to the continuing life of their descendants and their communities,” (24), and the man does this. When he is dying, he tells the boy that he is not allowed to die with him: “You cant. You have to carry the fire [...] I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant,” (McCarthy 298). He is keen to keep his legacy alive; his genes and his memes must go on when he cannot. This is a human need that the stripping away of society could not erase. His need to care for his son is what has kept him going all along. His wife says: “The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself,” and it is true. It is his son the man survives

Show More
Related
885 Words | 4 Pages

Because the son has been so starved, he is willing to do anything to gain some sort of food and increase his lifespan. This can further be explained when the father exclaims “Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father”, this insinuates that the son shouldn’t be harming his father, this explains that to this boy family relationships should be important to his self identity. Nevertheless, with this desperation for food and therefore survival, the son can’t focus on anyone else’s needs, he instead has to neglect all others, including his father despite the assumption he most likely gave every part of his own being to keep his son safe and protected. Another example of food being more important than family is when the main character, Eliezer,

Read More
1204 Words | 5 Pages

Because the family is uncertain about their future, they persevere through the present suffering

Read More
105 Words | 1 Pages

From 1946-1952 the United States chose Joseph McCarthy as Senate. When McCarthy became chairman of the Senate’s Committee he began his anti-communist investigation. But the word McCarthyism began well before Joseph McCarthy became Senator. Joseph McCarthy became U.S. Senate in 1946 He was then reelected in 1952 because he had publicly said that 205 communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. McCarthy then became chair of the Senate’s subcommittee on investigation and had claimed he had the names of 57 State Department communists.

Read More
512 Words | 3 Pages

Cormac McCarthy’s novel written during the 20th century, conveying dramatic experience in which McCarthy’s use of rhetorical and literary techniques providing themes, symbols, motifs and other figures of speech emphasizing the impact on the main character, and other parts throughout the text. Throughout this deep understood text, the author conveys negative tones and dictions to the text. The character is described to be very dull and adventurous. He is very ominous yet a mysterious character , however it is yet to be described to be somewhat positive in regards of the symbols used in relation to the text.

Read More
495 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
1000 Words | 4 Pages

From the beginning of the book, McCarthy institutes that the unidentified man and boy exists in the future where the world has been destroyed. The man in the book has faith

Read More
1114 Words | 5 Pages

1. Chart the changes in federalism throughout American history. What was dual federalism? How was governmental power distributed under this system? How did the Great Depression lead to the decline in dual federalism?

Read More
577 Words | 3 Pages

The next day he wakes and finds another sick person is his father’s cot and he knows that his father is dead. Since his father is gone, he does not have anyone in his life that he is certain is

Read More
804 Words | 4 Pages

In the 2006 novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a man and his son struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Told through a lens of constant hardship, the book follows their arduous journey towards a coast in order to survive the winter. Throughout the novel, McCarthy shows that having hope enables people to persevere in dire circumstances because it counteracts the possibility of negative outcomes. First, the woman’s monologue about her death displays the despair necessary to abandon all hope.

Read More
1390 Words | 6 Pages

Have you imagined how the post-apocalyptic world will look like and will you choose try hard to survive or to die? In the book, The Road, written by McCarthy, the sky is dark. It’s cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Everything has gone, only except some human beings who try every way to survive even by hurting and killing people.

Read More
624 Words | 3 Pages

The father’s wife had recently died, leaving him with the boy to take care of with the only mindset of keeping him alive, doing anything for their survival. This affected the father in a big way, leaving him with little hope and hardly any reason to stay alive, but the boy was “his warrant” (McCarthy 5) , his only reason for life. The boy starts out very scared and weak, always wanting to hide behind his father, knowing that one day he will die. The boy matures with every event that happens, and he maintains to have hope throughout most of them. “The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead.

Read More
646 Words | 3 Pages

In Cormac Mccarthy's novel, The Road, the overall outlook on humanity and life is negative. Death, fear, and sadness consumes humans lives. Mccarthy mainly writes about how darkness has taken over in this apocalyptic world in The Road. The apocalypse has unrooted many humans making them live in harsh ways, even turning them into cannibalistic animals. Some events make the father and son live in fear.

Read More
491 Words | 2 Pages

In the midst of all of this he finds a balance by focusing on what really matters. At the same time this keeps him focused on his main goal which is education. Education will be his family's way out of poverty. Through seeing his younger brother that is unemployed and will be having a child soon he looks beyond this and is genuinely proud of where he comes from. He realizes how strong his family is when he seems them fighting through poverty and making things.

Read More
770 Words | 4 Pages

There is no comparison to the amount of pain a parent endures when they outlive their child. A tale of woe is what resides after such incident. An endless cycle of grief is exemplified in the short story “Night” by Bret Lott. The way the father in the story pays meticulous attention to detail makes the audience believe that he does not want to forget the existence of his child. He is merely in denial.

Read More
1777 Words | 8 Pages

In “The Road Not Taken” a traveler goes to the woods to find himself and make a decision based on self-reliance. The setting of the poem relays this overall message. Providing the mood of the poem, the setting of nature brings a tense feeling to “The Road Not Taken”. With yellow woods in the midst of the forest, the setting “combines a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world with a sense of frustration as the individual tries to find a place for himself within nature’s complexity” (“The Road Not Taken”). The setting is further evidence signifying the tense and meditative mood of the poem as well as in making choices.

Read More

More about Comparing Prejudice And Symbolism In Joseph Mccarthy's The Road

Related Topics

Open Document