Analysis Of The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

In the novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy depicts the lives of a man and boy’s life in a post-apocalyptic world. When the reader approaches the last page, the book suddenly comes to an end. At first glance, the ending of the book seems inappropriate because it finishes without any closure or conclusion. With further observation though, The Road has an appropriate ending when compared to the writing pattern of the entire book. The writing pattern throughout the book is disconnected with the common goal, of the boy, to find other good people. Thus the conclusion of the work is highly appropriate according to the rest of the work. Throughout the book, thoughts are disconnected from each other and at many instances cease without any warning or …show more content…
At one moment in the book, the man sits and thinks about his wife before the disaster. “She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress” (19). The man goes into deep description of this moment, but then stops and his thoughts change quickly. The next paragraph has a quite different topic and has nothing to do with the man’s wife. The new paragraph now talks about a shopping cart the man and boy use to carry their only belongings. “He fashioned sweeps from two old brooms he’d found and wired them to the cart to clear the limbs from the road…” (19). As evidenced, these two paragraphs follow each other in the reading, but there seems to be no connection between them. All throughout the book, paragraphs end suddenly and the next start with completely different ideas just …show more content…
For the duration of the novel, the boy has one common goal: find the good people left on earth. The boy in many cases asks the father if they will ever find other good people like them. “What if some good guys come?” (151). Later in the book, the boy asks where the good guys are. “There are other good guys…so where are they?” (184). The boy is constantly searching for the good people in this terrible, devastating life he lives. As the reader continues into the novel, the father passes away and the boy finds what he has always been looking for. Another man comes up to the boy and asks him to come with him and his family. The new man claims that he will take care of the boy now that his father has deceased. While in fear the boy asks, “Are you one of the good guys” (282). With confidence the new man answers, “I’m one of the good guys” (282). The new man then proves that his family is good in many different ways. The new man still has children proving that he isn’t a cannibal like a majority of the survivors. The new man also leaves the father in peace when the boy asks him to. The new man leaves behind essential supplies because the boy asks him to and the new man knows it’s the right thing to do. Therefore, the boy, at the end of the book, finds exactly what he has been looking for. Since the boy finds closure in the good people he finds the book ends