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An Analysis Of Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

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The Road, a post-apocalyptic, bleak and overwhelmingly daunting set novel, which conceals a deeper rooted message of overwhelming love and the connection as well as the true meaning of father and son even through the darkest of times. This iconic novel was written by the world renown Cormac McCarthy, who typically writes out of the ordinary, dark, and menacing books and is also known for several other of his works including Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. McCarthy published this novel on September 26th, 2006 and took the world by storm with a whole new type of novel that made its readers do more than just scratch the surface of the novel; leaving a lot of questions and personal interpretations to the reader. This Pulitzer Prize winner …show more content…
The boy started his journey being completely dependent on his father and not being able to do anything for himself. He was scared of the world around him and frightened of the unknowingness that lay ahead on their gruesome journey through the treacherous land of the ruined America. The father, however, teaches the boy that you can not go into things being scared to lose everything. The boy learns from his father's decisions and is molded to have tougher skin (metaphorically) and is hardened - turning into a man. Why is it that he has changed so quickly? It is because of what he is growing up in and the terror around him. As he watches and learns from his father, he begins to realize that he needs to grow up fast and there are several reasons behind this. The boy is starting to realize that if he does not soon come of age, he will not make it much longer through the apocalypse as he won’t have a desire to live in such terrible times with his soft heart as his ethical philosophy are still set in the old ways of life. The boy also realizes that his father is dying. This is what give the Boy drive to grow up because he begins to realize there will soon be no one to take care of him but himself. There is also the question as to why the father and son switch roles towards the end of their journey. This is most likely because the father can no longer take care of …show more content…
Never has such great novel been unveiled. The Road and Cormac McCarthy do a great job of not only telling a story about a man and boy traveling in the harsh land to eventually meet their end, but he adds meaning to the work and uses it for the purpose to show how powerful love can really be while also allowing the reader to question the entirety of the novel. He shows us that love can keep a person alive. If the boy didn't have his father, in the beginning, he wouldn't be able to survive because he wouldn't have enough knowledge or skill to do anything for himself and if the man didn't have his son, then he would have nothing to live for and even says in the beginning of the novel that if his boy wasn't alive he wouldn't be alive because there wouldn't be enough fire in his heart to keep him

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