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Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

966 Words4 Pages

Christopher 1
Danielle Christopher
Mr. Jessie Bastin
AP Literature
August 5th, 2017
The Road: A Journey of a Father and his Son
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a dark and daunting novel that takes not only the two main characters but also the reader on a journey through a post-apocalyptic earth. A journey that evokes emotion in the reader and makes us feel, whether good or bad. To immerse oneself into the absolute destruction of the world in which only few people remain. It explores the lengths in which humanity will go to preserve one's own survival and the inevitability of immortality. Following a father and son on their harrowing path down the road, the reader begins to not only view The Road as a physical setting, but also as a mental state. …show more content…

Their story begins with the man and the boy in the woods, the man watching over the boy as he sleeps. The man and the boy are never given names and this may be to add the idea that this story could become anyone's reality at any given time. It adds to the inevitable feeling of one's fate. As the man watches over the boy he begins to reflect on a nightmare he had of a dark creature with no eyes. Nightmares seem to play a large role in The Road as almost something good and bad, a paradox of sorts. The nightmares themselves are scary and dark for both the man and the boy but the man exclaims that the nightmares are good because good dreams symbolize acceptance for one's place and ultimately their own death. Throughout the journey we see that the man seems to “cushion” …show more content…

When the Father and Son seem to be on their last leg, they find a house or some form of building where they scrounge up supplies so they can continue on. Another big part of the journey down the road is the growing maturity of the son. A recurring object is the pistol that contains only two bullets. It seems to be the only protection of the father and the son. In one part of the novel the father gives the son the pistol and explains to him that if they are captured he needs to shoot himself with it. This very moment in the book is why it is such a harrowing and dark read. Throughout the path down the Road the son’s growing maturity also desensitizes him to people around him

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