What makes us human? Is it the high intelligence or is it the fact that we have opposable thumbs. Set in a post apocalyptic setting the novel titled The Road by Cormac McCarthy tells us a story about a man and a boy and there struggle to survive. The book has a heavy theme of compassion towards others and companionship between the boy and the man. With hardly anyone around, each other is all they have. In the beginning, the man wakes up in the gloomy woods with a sleeping boy, when he wakes up he tells the boy he will never leave his side no matter what. In the first pages of the novel, the man holds the boy in high regards as he is like his life line, for the boy is the only companion he has throughout this story and without him, he has nothing. The man also has dreams of his wife at times, but he pushes them away because he thinks good dreams bring him closer to death and he refuses to die because the boy needs him in order to live. The man and boy also find the man's childhood home, the boy is scared to go in but the man is constantly reminding him that that there is nothing to worry about. So the man and the boy have a strong compassionate relationship in the first part of the story. …show more content…
The boy is the one that wants to help any survivors that are found. In one part of the book they find a man that is limping and hurt because he has been struck by lightning, the boy wants to help the other man but his papa refuses saying he is gonna die soon and he can't help him. In the story they also find a dog, the boy made sure that they weren't going to eat it. Here it shows that the boy has compassion to animals as well as people, the man says they wont eat it. Here is seems that the man can still show compassion even though it may be cold. This shows the boys compassionate side and the man's side of championship, the boy wants to help others while the man wants to help the