Major Works Data Sheet Your Name: Jialin Jin Title: The Road Author: Cormac McCarthy How many times on AP test? Once List four major conflicts (blank vs. blank) in the work and in your own words, provide a brief plot summary of the novel in five sentences or less. Man and Boy
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, takes place during the late 1940s. It is a story about a young man named John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old who is the last of a generation of the West Texas ranchers in his family. John Grady Cole takes a journey across the border to Mexico, after his grandfather's death, to retain his dream of living the cowboy life that he grew up with. As the story unfolds, John Gady Cole encounters a variety of obstacles that determines if his dreams are meant to be or if his fate will overpower his desires. McCarthy incorporates a variety of literary devices, internal conflict, and tone to achieve his theme of romanticism and reality.
Annotated Bibliography McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. The Road is set in a grim atmosphere.
Throughout life, we all go through rough moments where we think all is lost. However, we as humans always grow from these experiences and turn into beings with a new awakening and understanding of the world. In a passage from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, the narrator describes a striking ordeal, in which a man is coping with the death of a she-wolf. Despite the cause of death being left ambiguous, this dramatic experience has a vivid effect on the main character—causing him to change and grow into a new man by the end of the passage. McCarthy uses eloquent and expressive diction to create imagery which gives the reader an understanding of the narrator’s experience, supplemented by spiritual references as well as setting changes, elucidating the deep sadness and wonder felt by the protagonist.
War is happening all over the world and is an important issue in society. Why would one nation fight another? Is it for power? Whatever the reason may be, war is definitely leaves an impact on one’s life. War is a pitiful cause that can invoke an inevitable negative change within one.
The Road: A Breakdown of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs In Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, “The Road”, a man and his young son find themselves on a journey fighting for survival through a dark and desolate world. With no identity or any hope in the future, the characters are faced with many compromising decisions. Two levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the physiological and safety levels provide the most motivation and validation for the characters’ actions throughout the novel. There are 5 major levels to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs; physiological, safety, emotional, esteem, and self-actualization (Maslow 1).
Since The Road is more about the Boy’s journey than his father’s, the supreme ordeal at the end of the novel is the death of the Man. The death of the Man, who acted as the Boy’s mentor during the many challenges faced by the duo, represents the largest and most devastating challenge faced by the Boy. Not only is this due to the fact that the Boy feels unprepared to continue on without his father, but it is also because the “reward” and “road back” are not immediately apparent to the Boy. Compared to even the most challenging obstacles the Boy faced in the past, the death of his father leaves him both physically and mentally pained and exhausted. However, relief from his situation arrives promptly in the form of the stranger who claims to be a “good guy,” though the Boy’s future remains forever uncertain.
In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, the protagonist, a man, with a name unknown to readers, encounters an infernal apocalypse. McCarthy transforms the man’s entire world when “the clocks stopped at 1:17”(53). His son, born into the downfall of society, becomes his only hope for the rebirth of the nation as they both endeavor to survive to see another day. With a hope of more survivors, they journey to the south encountering conditions that are unforgiving. Despite the world pouring down upon them with rotted corpses and landscapes destroyed by fire, they continue on the road with the reassurance to themselves that they are the “good guys” ( ).
In everyday life, there are so many people worth to love and worth for giving them much affection. But have you ever thought, who is your dearest? For everyone, the answer may be grandparents, mothers, siblings or friends. For the boy in McCarthy's novel,"The Road", his father's image will forever be the sacred fire that warms his soul forever. "The Road" written by McCarthy not only about the relationship between a father and his son but also about the contradiction in itself every human.
The Road is an amazing novel that shows the struggles and moral conflicts that arise from living in a post-apocalyptic world. While reading the story, the use of McCarthy’s distinctive diction, imagery and tone helps the reader become more understanding of what they are reading. It helps the reader better connect and understand what the man and the boy are experiencing. Through third person, one is able to know the feelings and thoughts of both the man and the boy which is important since the man knew what it was like before the apocalypse and applies that knowledge to situations he is currently facing while the boy only knows this post-apocalyptic “society” therefore his views are vastly different from his father’s. While reading the story,
To Change is to Grow Through the book “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy the boy and the father show a great amount of change and maturity, while also learning to adapt and love. The story has a good balance of how different events can affect and impact someone's life in either a good or bad way. There are many events that change the mind and heart of the boy and father, but change can only be helpful if you learn from it and mature out of being afraid for things to happen. The stories main idea is very tragic in a dark, grey world where nothing ever good happens and instead of learning to live your preparing to die.
Fear eventually catches up to them because what the father had been afraid of since the beginning has finally come. He dies, leaving the boy to fend on his own. Mccarthy concluded his novel with a tragic ending filled with gloom and
The poem Two Lorries was written by Seamus Heaney an Irish poet born in Northern Ireland, precisely in County Derry, on April 13, 1939. He was one of the most remarkable authors of that time, which dealt with topics of violence and social issues as well as nature and Ireland history, which demonstrates the variety of his work. Heaney was awarded with a Nobel Prize in the field of literature, by 1995 since his work was of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past. Seamus marked study on the role of sorrow in Ireland’s political atmosphere during the Troubles; a meditation on the personal effect of the Troubles on the citizen population, and should be read as the physical death of human life, the death of Ireland’s pastoral innocence, and the death of childhood to the abrupt nature of violence. By the time he was 74 he died on the 30 of August in Dublin.
In The Road, Cormac McCarthy tells the story of a man and his son on a journey through the post-apocalyptic world trying to survive and make their ways to the South where life is ideally better. Throughout the story there are many symbolic events which cause skepticism in many readers. These various occurrences are due to the works of McCarthy and his use of minimalism in describing characters, plot, and other aspects within the story. This cloaking or anonymity throughout the story is intentional by McCarthy and there are a number of reasons why he does this. He leads the audience to infer based on their own reading as to what different situations in the story may resemble.
The poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost states that in life we come upon many decisions, and there are points where we have to let fate take the lead. “The Road Not Taken” uses two paths as a symbol of a life decision. To understand this poem you have to have understanding of life’s meaning. The author helps us better understand the message by his use of tone and literary devices such as metaphors and symbolism. In this poem we come to realize that life is a combination of decisions and fate.
