Central Theme: Hope, while hard to come by, can be of great importance, especially in the face of adversity.
1. Item: Lego people Element: Characterization
In The Road, Cormac McCarthy uses literary elements such as characterization to develop the theme of hope, while being hard to come by, can be of great importance, especially in the face of adversity. The very first sentence of the novel has the man “reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him” (3). The man woke up in the middle of the night, and his first reflex is to reach out for his child. As he reached for his child, the man showed how he has hope by physically reaching for what gives him it. In his world, the boy is a beacon of hope and life in what is otherwise a fruitless and deserted land. As a father, his main focus of life is to care for and love his child. By giving concrete examples of the man’s behavior, the author characterises the man as a caring and loving father, uses this to show that hope is necessary in a dark and desolate world.
2. Item: Torch Element: Motif
In The Road, Cormac
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After searching the houses, which are described as “damp [and] rotting,” the man finds a candle with “no way to light” and steps outside through “grey light,” realizing what ultimate fate the world has come to (130). McCarthy uses visual and olfactory imagery in the houses, “damp [and] rotting,” to emphasize what conditions the boy and the man are looking through to find anything of need to them. The “grey light” the man steps into, is described as “grey” to convey its dullness and bleakness. Although unlightable, the man grabbing the candle before he steps into the greyness symbolizes how the man trudges through making use of a world filled with emptiness, by conveying the grey light as a blurred path and the candle as a guide, in order to keep him and the boy