Cormac Mccarthy Isolation In The Road

The novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy conveys a man and his son caught in a desolate post-apocalyptic United States, where the date is unknown. The author never reveals the name of the man and the boy which asserts the reader into living vicariously through them. McCarthy overstates the “barren, silent, godless”(4) and bleak setting to reiterate the contrast of the atmosphere in the novel to the reader’s surroundings. The novel contains immoral people who are willing to do anything for humanity's survival where people that read the book will not share the same values. The man and the boy face many obstacles on the desolate, never-ending road that they overcome. The boy and the man have an encounter with a corrupt man that ends poorly, the man and the boy search for food by rummaging through houses they come upon helpless people, and the man’s decision at the end of the novel affects the boy. The boy is the light of the man’s world and the man urges to find a better place for them because of his angelic qualities and “if he is not the word of God, God never spoke”(4). McCarthy portrays the theme of the

The man and the boy encounter many difficult obstacles which make their journey difficult in the apocalypse. The man makes a quick decision and has to kill a man who threatens the life of the boy. The naked people kept in a basement against their will forces the man and the boy to realize the importance of being careful while searching through houses. The man convinces the boy to go on without him because the man cannot watch the boy and let him “carry the fire”(234) on his own. Ultimately, the man and boy conquer many obstacles which each teaches them lessons. McCarthy reinforces the theme of severe circumstances disclose the foremost in people through grisly diction, graphic imagery, and prominent