ipl-logo

Road To Maturity In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

2107 Words9 Pages

The Road to Maturity
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) is a tragic story of a father and son’s struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. The novel follows the father and son as they travel down ‘the road’ towards the coast, struggling with the world around them, which has dissolved into absolute nothingness. Very few people have survived the collapse of society, and the ones that have are savages and killers, doing what they can to stay alive. Seeing that all of the other survivors are turning into appalling and gruesome people, the father and son coin themselves the “good guys,” because they are not interested in hurting any of their fellow survivors. McCarthy never explicitly states the names of the father and son, nor specifies …show more content…

The boy represents children all over the world who also have to grow up quickly due to certain circumstances. Children in comfortable, middle-class families will never understand the feeling of the unknown. They are able to hold onto their childhood innocence for as long as they wish, and they never have to think about where their food is coming from or whether or not they will be alive in the morning. Children in countries like Syria are fighting for survival each and every day. Like the son’s, their horrific circumstances have caused them to mature much more rapidly than the average child. The apocalypse has taught the boy how to survive without the assistance of others. He is now able to travel ‘the road’ alone and stay alive day after day. The boy was born into the post-apocalyptic world, but that did not cause him to automatically have a cold, unforgiving heart. He shows compassion to a world that has never been kind to him. Although the boy has matured, that does not mean that he has lost every bit of his childhood, he is still able to occasionally have a laugh. It is apparent that he still has a childlike spark and a compassionate heart within him. The boy was forced to mature rapidly, but he continued to have hope through all situations, no matter how

Show More
Related

Resilience In The Road Analysis

588 Words | 3 Pages

Resilience is displayed through the drive shown by the characters in these stories, despite hardships or trauma in their pasts. In The Road, Papa and the boy continue to move forward and “carry the fire”, staying morally true to themselves, even despite the things they had seen. The boy’s mother shot herself, he has seen cannibalism, slavery, and people reduced to monsters and broken shells of humanity, but he is still fighting and trying to be one of the good guys. He still wants to help the little boy when he meets him, still wants to help Ely when he meets them (McCarty, 162); The Boy still has a desire to help people who are suffering. He is starving, but he wants to give away his food so that the people who are good in this world won’t die.

Read More

Theme Of Generalization And Identity In Junto Diaz's Drown '

1172 Words | 5 Pages

(153-156). In addition to the perseverance that is also shown, he has a crisp shard of optimism that is hidden in his words that keep him a child, regardless of the harsh jabs of heinous

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

Examples Of Individualism In Catcher In The Rye

311 Words | 2 Pages

The naive nature of the little boy lifts his spirits and fills his head with

Read More

The 39 Clues: A Short Story

750 Words | 3 Pages

I reopened the now dusty pages due to a fluttering sense of hope and found him on the other side. I do not know what happened in the years of his disappearance, but the new words in my hand did not reflect the impish boy I once knew. His innocence had died, leaving him battered and bruised. His humoured nature was gone, replaced by dejection. You couldn’t really expect anything less from a young man carrying the literal weight of the world on his shoulders.

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

Literary Elements And Symbolism In Gary Soto's The Jacket

710 Words | 3 Pages

It was a sad time for the heart.” The boy struggled during in his life, and instead of taking the blame for his troubles he blamed it on his mother and his green jacket. This difficulty could relate back to something that happened in his childhood that affected him. The boy may have had a hard life experience that made him struggle and

Read More

Figurative Language In Vertigo

1339 Words | 6 Pages

This is a form of loss but also confuses the reader a little as the boy is, in fact, a figment of their shared, as well as individual, imagination. The boy often appears, positive and playful and real. Often the boy appears to play alongside them, whirling around in the dust or darting mischievously among the weed piles and throwing clumps of weed into the air.” (pg. 24) showing that the boy still has his playful nature. The boy’s playful personality contrasts all the destruction and hurts the bushfire has caused Anna and Luke at the current time.

Read More

Fallacies In 12 Angry Men

1404 Words | 6 Pages

You know, born in a slum. Mother dead since he was nine. He lived for a year and a half in an orphanage when his father was serving a jail term for forgery. That's not a very happy beginning. He's a wild, angry kid, and that's all he's ever been.

Read More

Annotated Bibliography: The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

495 Words | 2 Pages

Annotated Bibliography McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. The Road is set in a grim atmosphere.

Read More

Humanity In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

646 Words | 3 Pages

One man gets struck by lightning so the son wants to help him, but the father wants nothing to do with it. In the novel the father and son do not stay in one place for too long, even when they are in a bunker underground that has loads of food, the father still does not think it is safe enough for them. The food source is limited, to get food they have to put themselves in danger. The young boy is worried when they walk upon homes because they have to go inside to find food. Constantly, they have to look for food because it is scarce, there are times when the father has to go hungry to feed his son.

Read More

Examples Of Loneliness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

863 Words | 4 Pages

In enduring these complex emotions, this section was the most remarkable part. One of the first apparent emotions the boy experiences with the death of his father is loneliness to make this section memorable. The boy expresses this sentiment when he stays with his father described as, “When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again,” (McCarthy 281). The definition of loneliness is, “sadness because one has no friends or company.”

Read More

The Heros Journey In The Hobbit And Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

1106 Words | 5 Pages

Since The Road is more about the Boy’s journey than his father’s, the supreme ordeal at the end of the novel is the death of the Man. The death of the Man, who acted as the Boy’s mentor during the many challenges faced by the duo, represents the largest and most devastating challenge faced by the Boy. Not only is this due to the fact that the Boy feels unprepared to continue on without his father, but it is also because the “reward” and “road back” are not immediately apparent to the Boy. Compared to even the most challenging obstacles the Boy faced in the past, the death of his father leaves him both physically and mentally pained and exhausted. However, relief from his situation arrives promptly in the form of the stranger who claims to be a “good guy,” though the Boy’s future remains forever uncertain.

Read More

A Long Walk To Water Analysis

736 Words | 3 Pages

In the end, his suffering paid off as his hope and dream of finding his family alive finally came true. Through the story of a young boy who treasured all his blessings in a harsh environment, I learned to value the things I have and to not waste these special

Read More

More about Road To Maturity In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Related Topics

Open Document