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Good And Evil In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

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The line between good and evil is often blurred, even more so in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. ‘The Road’ is a horrible beauty about a man and his son’s journey to the coast. In this post-apocalyptic world, everything that once was is no more and everything that was once known is questioned. Does the small difference between life and death tip the balance of good and evil? Can some evil doings be justified and even be considered as good? In this world of conflict, the answer is not so clear. Is the man who commits murder to protect his son any different from the man who eats a person to save himself from hunger? In a world of survival, why is a man who is only trying to survive branded as evil? The man constantly assures his son that they …show more content…

The man and his son are the ‘good guys’ easily distinguished from the ‘bad guys’: those on the other side of the line, the evil, the thieves, murderers and cannibals. But however different they may be, the father does stumble on the line that supposedly separates good and evil.

Although his father teeters along the line of good and evil, the boy is undoubtedly good. He doesn’t understand the need to hurt others in any circumstance, even when they are a threat to his survival. He not only pleads for the life of a thief but also wants to help him. The boy does not stumble the thin line separating good and evil but rather, he does not even see the line. Too good to truly understand that a small evil is sometimes necessary. But is his goodness good or a danger to their survival? Readers are left wondering where they stand on the scale of good and evil. There is an awareness that the line is thin and given certain circumstances, we might find ourselves on the wrong side. The story shows readers how the balance of good and evil is easily tipped and the difference is not so clear. Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ offers no comfort or reassurance but is a beautiful enchantment of wisdom, love and

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The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a novel that follows the journey of a father and son traveling south to escape the post-apocalyptic scene they were unfortunately put in. The father and son are survivors of some unnamed disaster that has occurred. As time passes by there is less and less food. There is also a lack of plants and animals. Other than scavenging for food, the only means of survival for some is cannibalism.

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In Cormac Mccarthy's novel, The Road, the overall outlook on humanity and life is negative. Death, fear, and sadness consumes humans lives. Mccarthy mainly writes about how darkness has taken over in this apocalyptic world in The Road. The apocalypse has unrooted many humans making them live in harsh ways, even turning them into cannibalistic animals. Some events make the father and son live in fear.

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In The Road, Cormac McCarthy uses figurative language, to demonstrate the difference in the people’s decisions and values when compared to the real world. The survivors of the apocalypse, including the father all had to undergo a series of radical changes in order to adapt and survive in the new world. When the father enters the house, where the people are kept for food, not only does he see naked people both male and female but also a man with his leg cut off. McCarthy writes, “On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and stumps of them blackened and burnt” (McCarthy 110).

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