The Boy And The Man In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

"You forget what you want to remember and remember what you want to forget" (McCarthy). The Road by Cormac McCarthy is an exhilarating novel based in a post-apocalyptic world. Within this piece of literature, there are many figures representing a variety of different elements of the world and human society. Of these characters, there are primarily only two protagonists: the boy and the man. The two protagonists are central figures that in terms of evolution, are near polar opposites; as the man remains neutral throughout the novel, the boy is constantly changing and thus evolving. The boy is a round, dynamic protagonist who endures the toughest of lives in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, managing to take shelter in the temporary security blanket that is his father before becoming the blanket himself. The character as a whole is progressively developing throughout the entirety of the novel. At first, the

Given that the setting of the novel is a post-apocalyptic world dominated by savage gangs such as the road agents, the true character of the boy is easily revealed, as is that of anyone who is under critical distress. The primal conditions having to be endured by the boy not only assist in molding him as a person, but also present him in a raw manner, allowing for the reader to dissect his soul. In his soul, the reader may find a beautiful site: love, kindness, strength, and overall goodness. In contrast to the horrid world around them, the man is a source of security and strength for the boy. The man is presented in the story as the boy's father and protector. Throughout the entirety of the novel, the boy is dependent of the man for survival. Inversely, the man is even more reliant on the boy for peace and sanity. Each of the two protagonists are overly reliant on each other, but there is no doubting that the man is his son's absolute security