Morality In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a story of a father and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Together, they walk through a wasteland searching for necessities essential for survival, while trying to avoid roaming bands of cannibals. Along the way their morals are revealed in the choices they make to survive. McCarthy develops the theme of morality by showing the conflict between the boy’s and father’s moral impulses, especially when moral choices affect their own and others’ survival.
One of the first instances of this conflict occurs when the pair encounters a man who has been struck by lightning. The theme of morality begins to emerge when the boy’s desire to help the man collides with his father’s intentions to ignore the man for the sake of their survival. After begging his father to help the man, the father tries to end the discussion with a curt response “No. We cant help him. There’s nothing to be done for him.” Here, the source of the fathers morals start to become clear. He is determined …show more content…
In this essay, I provided evidence of the boy’s and Papa’s moral conflicts from three scenes: when they see the man who had been struck by lightning, when they come across the dog, and when they leave the man who stole their cart naked in the street. The evidence I provided for the man who was struck by lightning demonstrates the tension between the boy’s selflessness and Papa’s moral obligation to teach the boy life skills. When Papa and the boy encountered the dog, the evidence I provided showed how Papa’s morality collides with the boy’s when they are faced with the decision of taking another life for their own survival. The evidence in the third scene shows the intensity of the boy’s desire to help others even if they have have tried to harm him. The theme of morality has a very strong presence throughout Cormac McCarthy’s The