Cormac Mccarthy Love In The Road

1345 Words6 Pages

English 4U ISU

Love is a special thing, love is what keeps people going through the tough times in life, without love this world would be nothing. Even with all the cruelty in the destroyed world of The Road, there is still love in the midst of it. In the novel Cormac McCarthy expresses love, caring and survival through the inseparable relationship of a father and his son using character development, setting and conflict. McCarthy demonstrates the importance of love in The Road, he shows that when there is nothing left for somebody, if love is present, he has everything. The man, who remains nameless throughout the entire novel, has lost everything ever since the apocalypse happened, the only thing that remains for him is his son. His son …show more content…

This is what makes this story very intense from start to finish, knowing that death could be just around the corner since it seems that everyone else that is still roaming around in the hellish world are just cannibals and murderous monsters. Throughout the novel the man holds the thought of “carrying the fire”. It is basically the idea of preserving his goodness and being more civilized to maintaining his own humanity, in order to have the power to avoid murder and cannibalism and make his sons safety a priority. Throughout the novel the man constantly sets goals for them to accomplish, kind of a way to keep the boy from losing hope, heading south or reaching the east coast for example were their main goals to accomplish, in a way the road itself symbolized survival and hope. The man has no reason to continue living except for his indescribable love for the boy, he is what keeps him going on “the road”. When his death nears he scratches his earlier plan of killing the boy because he doesn’t want to send him to the “darkness alone”. Instead of killing the boy he decides to pass on the “fire” so that he can complete their goals of heading south, he also advises him to continue being one of the good