Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, portrays a grim and desolate world devastated by an unknown catastrophe, causing the beginnings of the apocalypse and paving the way for a “barren, silent, [and] godless” land in which survival is a daily battle, a desperate cry for help, trying to cling onto the dwindling concept of hope with each passing day. As an unidentified man and boy venture through the dark and dreary landscape of the road, they encounter brutal weather, starvation, lack of materials, thieves, and cannibals. They are pushed to the brink of death, “their hearts pounding” (112) with every decision, “beginning to think that death was finally upon them” (129). With the world on the brink of extinction, some will do anything …show more content…
The line, “a charred human infant headless and gutted” (198) helps deepen the feelings of horror and curiosity through the passage describing the nightmarish actions of desperate survivors willing to eat a newborn baby just to sustain their hunger. McCarthy uses cannibalism as a symbol of decay, further developing the theme of oscillating morality, showing how humans are selfish creatures, willing to do whatever possible to benefit themselves and continue living on “borrowed time [in a] borrowed world” (130). While there are examples of immorality in humans through acts of cannibalism and murder, McCarthy also portrays the idea of morality, purity, and goodness, furthering the theme of oscillating morality. McCarthy depicts the boy in a divine, heavenly aura despite living in such a sinful world, stating he is “good to house a god” (75). The boy is “carrying the fire” (83), the light shining through the clouds and brightening the shadows of sin, the last hope for good to