The Father And Son In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” (Bob Marley) Throughout history there are few people remembered for their integrity, for their tyranny, dishonesty, selfishness, yes, but integrity is such a rare true thing that is untouchable by those around those who possess it. It shines through the darkness. For instance, William Wilberforce, born and raised in a wealthy traditional family was involved in abolitionism,promoting education for the underprivileged, Christianity, strict uprightness and health and wellbeing of animals. Wilberforce worked from the age of 27 till his death he worked in parliament to outlaw the slave trade. Or Winston

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. Their only form of defense includes a flare gun which the son does not approve of for killing or hurting others, let alone as a means of obtaining food. McCarthy suggests the young boy as a Messiah throughout his story as a means to display the morality in a dystopian world.

Think of a circumstance where you were so hungry and thirsty, that you did not even care to think about your father anymore. That circumstance goes against common father-son relationships. The common father-son motif is where the father looks out and cares for the son. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he explains why the circumstances around a father-son relationship can change their relationship, whether it 's for the better or the worse. Since the book is about the life of Elie in a Nazi concentration camp, the circumstances were harsh and took a toll on multiple father-son relationships. You can see this with Elies reaction to his father 's death, Elie 's relationship with his father throughout the story, and other sons reactions to their fathers bad state of health.

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

At that moment, he heard the door. Not the doorbell but a series of soft, polite raps, almost apologetic about the late hour. Every house has a logic, and its laws are more eloquent at night, when things occur without palliative noises. He didn’t look at his watch or jump, or suspect that he was hearing things. He simply got up from his chair and walked toward the door without turning on any lights; when he found himself standing face-to-face with his father. He had not seen his father since his death. And, at that moment, he had the strange realization that he had become used to the idea of never seeing him again.

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road is known as one of the best books written in the last 25 years. McCarthy uses several linguistic and literary devices to illustrate the character’s feelings in the reader’s brain. 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.

The duo’s entire journey is, in fact, a seemingly endless series of obstacles which the Man and Boy must face. These obstacles range from cannibals slowly trekking down the road to Mother Nature itself. For example, the Man and Boy barely escape cannibalistic gangs both when a gang unexpectedly appears on the road and when the Man discovers the basement of one such gang packed with naked men and women. In addition, even after securing a source of food, such as when they find the bunker, the Man and Boy always face the potential of starvation and the freezing cold weather because the Man knows they cannot carry all the food they find and that they cannot stay in one location for an extended period of time. Moreover, on two occasions, once when the cannibalistic gang find their cart and once when the thief on the beach steals the cart, do the Man and Boy lose nearly everything they have (though, they eventually catch the beach thief and, to the Boy’s disappointment and sadness, the Man forces him to give them everything he has). However, not all of the tests and enemies faced by the Man and Boy are physical obstacles; in several cases, these obstacles are their own minds. For example, the Boy sometimes expresses a desire to be with his mother in

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.

Humanity takes form in many different ways throughout o society. Many argues that society does not have any humanity, but they are very mistaken. Humanity is very common in society people just show it in different ways this can go from helping someone to just being there for one another. Humanity can be shown through safety,hope, and reuniting people.

In The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, published in 2006, a man and a boy struggle to survive as they travel south on the road in the post-apocalyptic world. On their journey to the coast, the man and the boy encounter the remains of an ashen world, ravaged by men who are willing to kill to survive. Among the death and destruction of the post-apocalyptic world, McCarthy illustrates how the man gains resilience from the spirituality he finds within his son, which proves how in a world void of official religion, belief in something greater than yourself creates the strength necessary to survive.

Through the book “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy the boy and the father show a great amount of change and maturity, while also learning to adapt and love. The story has a good balance of how different events can affect and impact someone's life in either a good or bad way. There are many events that change the mind and heart of the boy and father, but change can only be helpful if you learn from it and mature out of being afraid for things to happen.

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. It seems that there is no reason to keep surviving in a world which no hopes remain, a father still perseveres to survive with his son and they are sustained by their love. On their journey, the father sacrifices a lot to protect his son and strongly shows his parental love.

Throughout the novel the son and father live in fear, which is no way anyone should live. No matter where they go they always maintain to have eyes in the back of their heads, because they never know who or what they might stumble upon. They tend to stay away from people. The father takes extra precautions, for example he has a mirror on the cart so he can see what is behind them at all times. The father does this because in this case someone is following them. 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. 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

“My father, with tears in his eyes, tried to smile as one friend after another grasped his hand in a last farewell. Mama was overcome with grief. At last we were all in the wagons. The drivers cracked their whips. The oxen moved slowly forward and the long journey had begun.” — Virginia Reed, daughter of James Reed. A tragic story of the Donner party is a very harrowing adventure through the journey of the big group and how about half of the people lived to tell the tale.

The guidance and support from a father remains a necessity for a child to grow into a healthy adulthood. In the novel, The Light in the Forest, by Conrad Richter, True Son, a white boy held captive by the Indians for eleven years, felt the influence of three fathers in his life, and each one impacted him in a different way: his biological father, Harry Butler; Cuyloga, and the Sun.