Stop crying. Free Essays - PhDessay. This shows that the father does not trust his son to be able to survive in this environment, and he would much rather have him die easily than have to attempt survival and risk suffering. The word prophet means a person who has the ability to speak or imagine something about future and both the father and son expect the arrival of God, the road cormac mccarthy essay, even though they live in chaos. When snow falls, it collects the ash in the air and falls to the earth already gray.
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The man demonstrates consistently that he is prepared to take whatever action necessary, even if violent, to ensure his son's survival and best interests. The most obvious the road cormac mccarthy essay of this occurs when the man does not hesitate to shoot the attacker who holds a knife to the boy's throat. In less dramatic examples, the man continually sacrifices his own health to give his son nourishment. He also works hard to reassure his son that they are good people who hold the fire of goodness within them, and that they would never do things like eat other humans. Overall, the road cormac mccarthy essay, does The Road put forth a positive and uplifting view of humanity, or one of darkness and pessimism?
The striking last paragraph, with its vivid imagery of trout hidden in deep mountain glens, offers a redemptive ending to what has been a story of awful indifference and destruction, where hope has eked out a meager, slight existence in the face of the ubiquitous destructiveness of human nature, which has both caused the catastrophe and perpetuated the evils in the world afterward. The boy's rescue by a family of "good guys" might be read as an ironic ending with hope in the face of disaster, where somehow the good-guy fire persists.
The result is optimistic resilience, a hope against hope, which offers humans an existential choice about how they want to live, whether or not human nature and physical nature make those choices easy or hard. Both the man and his wife understand that in this post-apocalyptic environment, they are likely to be brutalized at the hands of rapists, murderers, and cannibals. The wife considers death to be a needed relief from these threats. To the contrary, the father considers death an abhorrent threat that would prevent him from protecting his son; his commitment to life drives him on the journey south to ensure his son's survival. Discuss at least two contrasting ways in which the survivors of the catastrophe deal with the chaos. The man's wife responds to the catastrophic circumstances by committing suicide and avoiding the road cormac mccarthy essay gruesome fate might befall her.
Scavengers on the road choose to resort to murder, thievery, and cannibalism in order to survive. For them, humanity, kindness, and empathy are greatly diminished, it seems, although many of them continue to live in groups. The man and the boy, however, choose to scavenge and refrain from harming others unless violence is absolutely necessary to their survival. That the man and the boy internally "carry the fire" signifies that they are the "good guys. The fire represents internal human strength in the form of qualities such as hope, perseverance and resilience, as well as morality, the ability to retain one's humanity in the face of ultimate destruction and evil. How do the protagonists distinguish the "good guys" from the "bad guys"?
Are the protagonists indeed the "good guys"? The man and the the road cormac mccarthy essay consider themselves good guys, which they tend to see as seeking survival without harming others. They only scavenge for food and supplies, the road cormac mccarthy essay, but they try not to steal from others, and they punish those who steal from them. In contrast, the "bad guys" are willing to hurt, use, or murder others for their own benefit. How does the boy's relationship with his father change over the course of their journey? The boy matures over the course of this journey, and his changing relationship with his father reflects this growing maturity.
At the beginning of the novel, the boy looks to the father for knowledge and guidance, believing his father to speak the truth unequivocally, the road cormac mccarthy essay. However, as he gains new experiences, the boy learns to use his own judgment and can assess somewhat better whether or not his father is telling the truth. He begins the road cormac mccarthy essay question his father's honesty on such matters as whether or not they are truly the "good guys" and asserts his own opinion when believing that they should help other people. In a sense, it is time for the father to die when the son is mature enough to make his own moral decisions for the new generation. What purpose do the father's memories and dreams the road cormac mccarthy essay in The Road?
The man's the road cormac mccarthy essay memories and dreams poignantly underscore, often by contrast with, the hopeless destruction and chaotic violence which characterize his situation in reality. These passages also demonstrate the man's struggle not to succumb to wishful fantasies but instead to persevere throughout the journey's seemingly insurmountable hardships. The vivid excerpts from his past life remind him and the reader that such a life did once exist, despite the hellish present circumstances.
Discuss some of the literary techniques used by McCarthy to evoke and maintain the novel's largely grim and bleak setting. Perhaps the most important literary devices used to achieve this end are flashbacks, repetition, and vivid imagery of nature. The bleak imagery he evokes insistently impress the road cormac mccarthy essay the reader the extremely harsh conditions the protagonists must face. Throughout the novel, the boy and the man also touch upon the same themes in their conversations: whether they will die of starvation; being the good guys; carrying the fire, the road cormac mccarthy essay.
These repetitions or mantras keep the sobering themes of death, violence, and unlikely survival to the fore. Furthermore, the contrasting flashbacks, full of life and color, juxtaposed with the imagery of a dead land inhabited by the walking dead, highlight the gravity of the protagonists' present circumstances. The flashbacks also scramble the linear telling of the story, seeming to lengthen the arduous journey endured by the man and the boy. Trust or the lack of trust is the expression of a basic human relationship. Those who can be trusted will work together; those who cannot be trusted will be either ignored or killed.
The father's paranoid and unsympathetic behavior towards other travelers on the road, though they may be harmless like Ely and the burnt man, stem from his distrust of all other individuals, because of his past experience. The boy has seen much less trouble in his short life and tends to trust others much more. His trust in his father reflects his love but also his immaturity, and as he matures he learns to decipher the situations in which his father may be lying to protect him, so that by the the road cormac mccarthy essay of the novel, he does not simply take his father's words at face value. The Question and Answer section for The Road is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
The original book text doesn't have a lot of detail of mother. We know she wants to die and she wants her boy to die. The world is dead and she would rather have her son die than be exposed to the road cormac mccarthy essay soulless scavengers left roaming the countryside When they stop by the orchard, what does the man see that he has seen before? They find an orchard with "a frieze of human heads, all faced alike, dried and caved with their taut grins and shrunken eyes". Why does the kid say he talks to his dad more than he talks to God? He cried for a long time. I'll talk to you every day, he whispered. And I wont forget. No matter what. The Road study guide contains a biography of Cormac McCarthy, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, the road cormac mccarthy essay, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
The Road essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Remember me. Forgot your password? Buy Study Guide. The boy prefers to talk to his father, and he had promised to talk to him every day. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to Study Guide for The Road The Road study guide contains a biography of Cormac McCarthy, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, the road cormac mccarthy essay, and a full summary and analysis. About The Road The Road Summary Character List Glossary Themes Read the Study Guide for The Road….
Essays for The Road The Road essays are academic essays for citation, the road cormac mccarthy essay. Carrying the Fire: Effective Literary Devices in McCarthy's The Road The Road: Hope for an Obliterated World? Dystopian Novels in a Cruel World The Journey Motif in Works of American Literature Imagery and Themes Establish McCarthy's Views in The Road View our essays for The Road…. Lesson Plan for The Road About the Author Study Objectives Common Core Standards Introduction to The Road Relationship to Other Books Bringing in Technology Notes to the Teacher Related Links The Road Bibliography View the lesson plan for The Road…. Wikipedia Entries for The Road Introduction Plot Development history Literary significance and reception Adaptations View Wikipedia Entries for The Road….
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The scarcity of resources drives people to steal, kill and even become cannibals. Those who attempt decency try to avoid the vices and are only driven to the extremes out of necessity. The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead McCarthy The boy, for instance, does not harm anyone, while the man does so only when it is really necessary. This implies that in the midst of all the cruelty, the virtues of compassion and morality can still prevail. The woman however opts to commit suicide so as to escape the cruelty. The man also preserves two bullets in the gun for self destruction incase things get to the extreme. This is evident in the passage:. She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift. She would do it with a flake of obsidian… and she was right.
There was no argument. They looked to have been boiled McCarthy Such lack is what drives the people to cruelty for survival. It is a man-eat-man society and virtues seem rare. People are raised just like livestock for slaughter, and the conditions under which they are raised are pathetic. The boy is exposed to the world at its worst and the man is not even able to explain the same to him. Cruelty had become normal and one had to use any means including hurting or killing so as to survive. Someone, for instance, tries to kill them by shooting them with an arrow.
The man is wounded on the leg but manages to protect the boy. Before the offender could aim again, the man shoots at him and they all hear him scream. The Man and the boy seem to be living in isolation from the good people. It almost seems as though even God had abandoned them. In spite of all these, their affection for each other remains strong. Their memory of a better past makes it so hard for them to come into terms with the current happenings. The writer seems to be pointing to the fact that with such cruelty, human are likely disappear from the face of the earth. One of the characters, for instance says:. McCarthy At first the boy is left by the mother, who opts to commit suicide as she can no longer cope with the hopelessness.
At the end the boy is also left by the father, who dies and leaves him alone in a world that is so difficult to cope with. People are in a state of disillusion and it is even hard for one to imagine that things will ever get better. The land is unproductive and in desolation. It is quite evident from their conversation that people were hiding from each other. The phrase points to the fear and isolation that had become evident. No one could trust another. The man refuses to imagine that the ancestors were watching and that there would be any form of justice at the end. According to him, they were dead and that was all. It is as though the human history and morality had been eroded by that devastating apocalyptic event. While asked the purpose of the gun, the man indicated that he possessed it for the purpose of setting others on fire and not necessarily signaling.
Such are the extremes that the world had reached so that a grisly weapon is used for signaling and setting others on fire. They enslave, torture and even kill them while the good ones try not to harm others unless if it is out of necessity as in the case of self defense. The man and the boy fall in this category. He assures the boy that they were still good guys. The man goes ahead to assure the boy that they would not eat a human even if they were starving. This is a basic form of decency that any man is expected to have but it is quite surprising that most people. Need a custom Analytical Essay sample written from scratch by professional specifically for you? Cormac Mc Carthy presents the character Ely, a blind and old wanderer as a prophet.
He is the only person in the novel that has a name. The old man stands near the road for a long time and he is the only person who knows the existence of God in this world. He sacrifices his flesh and blood for the suffering people. He is the only man in this world who never welcomes tomorrow. He reveals that tomorrow is never ready for the people; the horrendous reality is that people did not even know they were there. The father and the boy represent a group but the blind man stands an isolated status. Holt, John. of The Road, Cormac McCarthy. California Literary Review. Need a custom Report sample written from scratch by professional specifically for you?
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