Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

Throughout the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the geographical, cultural, and physical surroundings help shape the morality of the little boy. The Road takes place during a post-apocalyptic world, in which morals and humanity is questioned through the actions of cannibals, rapists, and murderers. The man and the boy go on a quest that carries on throughout the novel to head further down south in hopes of finding warmer weather. As Thomas C. Foster stated in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster 3). Every quest is composed of five basic elements; a questor, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go to that destination. In …show more content…
As Thomas C. Foster states in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, “Geography can also define or even develop character” (Foster 175). McCarthy begins the novel describing the geography as a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which almost everything is in ruins. The geography in The Road takes place in the north mountains during the coldest part of winter. The landscape is mostly covered in ashes, and is “barren, silent, godless” (McCarthy 4). Due to the lack of essentials for survival, a portion of the remaining population resort to the act of cannibalism to sustain their hunger. The man and the boy refuse to resort to cannibalism, and find other ways to survive in the post-apocalyptic world. The father reassures the boy that they will never resort to cannibalism in order to survive which proves he has an understanding of humanity, and tries to instill this moral into the boy. The barren geography in The Road poses a challenge for the man and boy, in which they have to decide whether to remain humane, or fall to the action of cannibalism due to the desolate and deserted geography of The Road, in which resources are