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Literary Analysis Of The Road Mccarthy

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The Road Literary Criticism

A literary element that Cormac McCarthy uses throughout his story The Road is hope. While these glimmers of hope are few and far between, the importance of them is not insignificant. Through small glimpses of hope, “carrying the fire”, and our last glimmer of hope, we journey though The Road along with the unnamed characters.
Cormac McCarthy truly plays with our heartstrings throughout this book. Everything is bleak and terrible. You are 100% sure that they are going to die and then they find something that helps keep them alive. The biggest example of heartbreakingly tragic to optimistically hopeful happens when the father and son find a bunker filled with food, clothes and other supplies that they need to survive. “Crate upon crate of canned goods. Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef. Hundreds of gallons of water. … Plastic trashbags stuffed with blankets… I found everything. Everything. Wait till you see” (McCarthy, 138-139). In this section of the book we believe that perhaps the father and son will live out the rest of their days in the bunker. “The hope that is wrapped up between the two, the constant reassurances that they are together and safe, and the proof of goodness in this terrible society are all …show more content…

Epimetheus liberally spread around such gifts as fur and wings but by the time he got around to man, he had run out of gifts. Feeling sorry for man’s weak and naked state, Prometheus raided the workshop of Hephaistos and Athena on Mt. Olympus and stole fire, and by hiding it in a hollow fennel-stalk, he gave the valuable gift to man, which would help him in life’s struggle. The Titan also taught man how to use their gift and so the skill of metalwork began.

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