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The Good And Bad In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

868 Words4 Pages

The Road Essay Theme: Morals can survive even in the worst settings. In the harsh world of The Road, there is a man and boy who both struggle to survive and their only hope is to cling on to the good morals. People have abandon all the good morals and have resorted to violence, murder, and cannibalism to survive. Although Cormac McCarthy envisioned the world stating that only the violent survive, he also created two characters that would defy that belief by having them survive and simultaneously stick with their good morals. Cormac McCarthy defines the difference between the good and the bad. He used detailed imagery to describe the corrupt appearances the bad guys have. Cormac McCarthy created the setting to make it seem like only the corrupt …show more content…

But they came across a person that would show that there is still good in the broken world. After they met different kinds of people, all the father and son did was either leave them to die or kill them. So the statement that they’re the good guys can be questioned. Until they met a man named Ely. “I 've not seen a fire in a long time, that 's all. I live like an animal. You don’t want to know the things I 've eaten. When I saw that boy I thought that I had died. You thought he was an angel? I didn’t know what he was. I never thought to see a child again. I didn’t know that would happen.” (Pg 172) This quote shows that the boy’s innocence was very precious and rare. The innocence and compassion of helping people in this world has been lost and seems like it will be lost forever. “I’ve not seen a fire in a long time, that’s all. I live like an animal.” This fire was supposed to represent the basic decency in a world that has been corrupt. Ely hasn’t seen it for a while and when he saw the boy, he thought he was dead because such innocence and compassion seemed very unreal. This gives hope to readers that the man and boy still have good morals in them and that they could survive and simultaneously “carry the

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