ipl-logo

Imagery And Symbolism In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

878 Words4 Pages

Carrying Burdens on the road
“Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before” (McCarthy 1). Cormac McCarthy uses visual imagery, symbolism, and other elements of deeper meaning to bring the world a post-apocalyptic story. The Road is a novel focused on the journey of a family, which consists of an unnamed man and his equally anonymous son, towards the southern region of barren North America after the apocalypse. The father is the son’s only caretaker and is struggling with his physical and mental health. The son is approximately ten years old and has only ever known the desolate world he was born into. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, McCarthy uses animalistic metaphors, gingerly diction, and symbolism …show more content…

For example, the metaphor “Carrying the fire” is repeated often in the novel and is a form of symbolism specific to light. The father usually says this to give a goal to himself or the son. At the end of the novel as the father was dying he told the son that he needed to find the good guys who also “carry the fire”. The son responds by saying he wanted to die and go with the father. The father says, “You can’t. You have to carry the fire” (McCarthy 91). The son asks if it’s real and the father says yes and that it is inside the son’s heart. Although this dialog is finally revealing the meaning and importance of the fire some readers may have thought that McCarthy was just trying to give the audience hope for the boy’s future, but McCarthy was doing more than just that. Up until they reached their journey’s end the father was mainly carrying the hope for the future himself but he was also training the boy to continue being a good person for the sake of the entire new population of Earth. The father knew that he would die and that is why he tried so hard to keep the son as he was since birth; the pure embodiment of hope for the future. McCarthy revealed the entire theme of his novel with a few lines within a

Show More
Related

  • The Father And Son In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    494 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel the father's love for his son pushes him to protect him no matter the risks. For example in the novel many times the two would go to an abandoned house

    Read More

  • The Young Messiah In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    1446 Words  | 6 Pages

    A gift from God: The young Messiah in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road The Road shares the rough journey of a man and his messianic-figure son struggling to survive the morality of a post-apocalyptic world. The earth is destroyed and a majority of the once living are now deceased, however, the boy and his father continue to travel through their burned world. On their route south towards the coast, they find injured “good” guys and “bad” guys including thieves, shelter, clothes, and little food and water.

    Read More

  • Sacrifice In The Road

    1390 Words  | 6 Pages

    Have you imagined how the post-apocalyptic world will look like and will you choose try hard to survive or to die? In the book, The Road, written by McCarthy, the sky is dark. It’s cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Everything has gone, only except some human beings who try every way to survive even by hurting and killing people.

    Read More

  • Cormac Mccarthy Code Of Ethics In The Road

    1813 Words  | 8 Pages

    The thrilling novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy is a story about a post apocalyptic world following the lives of a man and a boy as they head south to escape the cold winter that is headed their way. Along with the cold of winter approaching they also have to deal with the new dangers of the land while traveling such as cannibals, robbers, and many more dangers. This is a tale of a unnamed man and a boy who must not only learn how to survive but find a inner “fire”, establish a code of ethic, and continue in finding reasons to live in this “new world”. With McCarthy’s unique approach to the characters of the book having no names or the cause of destruction of the world unknown it helps the reader feel the confusion and whats really important

    Read More

  • Cormac Mccarthy Changes In The Road

    624 Words  | 3 Pages

    The father’s wife had recently died, leaving him with the boy to take care of with the only mindset of keeping him alive, doing anything for their survival. This affected the father in a big way, leaving him with little hope and hardly any reason to stay alive, but the boy was “his warrant” (McCarthy 5) , his only reason for life. The boy starts out very scared and weak, always wanting to hide behind his father, knowing that one day he will die. The boy matures with every event that happens, and he maintains to have hope throughout most of them. “The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead.

    Read More

  • Cormac Mccarthy Symbolism In The Road

    1743 Words  | 7 Pages

    McCarthy uses symbolism throughout the entire book. He symbolizes “the fire” that the boy is carrying and how the difference between fighting and giving up. This symbolism is part of a bigger literary analysis that I read this novel through. The literary analysis is called Formalism and it is used to separate everything apart from the novel to just read the novel in its raw state to find the symbols and meaning behind the text.

    Read More

  • The Father And Spirituality In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    910 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the man was drying off his son’s hair by the fire, he thought it was all “like some ancient anointing,” why not “evoke the forms” and “construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them,” showing how the man identifies his son as sacred (McCarthy 74). The simile compares the man’s actions to that of an ancient anointing, in which his son is the one being blessed. This passage demonstrates how the father maintains some belief in religion and equates both beauty and piety to his son. For the man, the boy represents something sacred that creates an incentive for the him to keep living, if only to protect the boy. The man “sat beside him and stroked his hair.

    Read More

  • The Crossing Cormac Mccarthy Analysis

    504 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout life, we all go through rough moments where we think all is lost. However, we as humans always grow from these experiences and turn into beings with a new awakening and understanding of the world. In a passage from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, the narrator describes a striking ordeal, in which a man is coping with the death of a she-wolf. Despite the cause of death being left ambiguous, this dramatic experience has a vivid effect on the main character—causing him to change and grow into a new man by the end of the passage. McCarthy uses eloquent and expressive diction to create imagery which gives the reader an understanding of the narrator’s experience, supplemented by spiritual references as well as setting changes, elucidating the deep sadness and wonder felt by the protagonist.

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography: The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

    495 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is after apocalypse world where all signs of life are extinct. People and animals are starving, and predatory groups of savages wander around with pieces of human bodies stuck in their teeth. It is both oppressive and disheartening. McCarthy sets an atmosphere like one mediately after the world wars. It is not far-fetched to imagine the possibility of such a sad environment today.

    Read More

  • Cormac Mccarthy The Road Hope

    804 Words  | 4 Pages

    The boy takes care of him as they talk one last time. Most prominently, the symbol of “the fire” (McCarthy 278) and carrying it are used to display hope and virtue. The man often uses ‘carrying the fire’ as a way to

    Read More

  • Contradiction In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

    1529 Words  | 7 Pages

    In everyday life, there are so many people worth to love and worth for giving them much affection. But have you ever thought, who is your dearest? For everyone, the answer may be grandparents, mothers, siblings or friends. For the boy in McCarthy's novel,"The Road", his father's image will forever be the sacred fire that warms his soul forever. "The Road" written by McCarthy not only about the relationship between a father and his son but also about the contradiction in itself every human.

    Read More

  • Faith And Conflict In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    1457 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a novel that follows the journey of a father and son traveling south to escape the post-apocalyptic scene they were unfortunately put in. The father and son are survivors of some unnamed disaster that has occurred. As time passes by there is less and less food. There is also a lack of plants and animals. Other than scavenging for food, the only means of survival for some is cannibalism.

    Read More

  • Humanity In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    646 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fear eventually catches up to them because what the father had been afraid of since the beginning has finally come. He dies, leaving the boy to fend on his own. Mccarthy concluded his novel with a tragic ending filled with gloom and

    Read More

  • Examples Of Loneliness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

    863 Words  | 4 Pages

    ‘Yes it is,’” (McCarthy 278). The boy sees the father as a visionary. An all-knowing person. When his father says the fire is real and the boy can reach it, the boy believes him and will now strive to achieve it for his father.

    Read More

  • How Does Robert Frost Use Metaphors In The Road Not Taken

    745 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Robert Frost’s 1916 poem, The Road Not Taken, he uses metaphors, imagery and strong punctuation and line breaks to explore a theme focused on making proper decisions and discovering new experiences. His skillful use of figurative language has made this poem incredibly famous worldwide. The writing truly captures the dilemma people go through when choosing which path to take in each aspect of their lives. In the first stanza, Frost starts off by using a metaphor in the first line: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”

    Read More

More about Imagery And Symbolism In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

Open Document