The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian novel, tells the story of a young boy and his father trying to navigate a post apocalyptic world, filled with monstrosities and misfortune. They walk along the road with seemingly little hope, continuing because they believe they are carrying the fire and goodness can still be found. Papa and the boy meet a man whose appearance and actions symbolize how the dystopian world has made humans into desperate animals.
The man described in this passage has reverted to a primal creature. When Papa and the boy come across him there is an immediate sense of foreboding. McCarthy describes the man's appearance using death like terms “eyes collard in cups of grime and deeply sunk. Like an animal inside a skull looking