The Earth is the only known place that can sustain and create life. What happens if it can no longer serve its purpose? In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the world can no longer be seen as lush, green, or even inhabitable. Animals and vegetation have rapidly died off and there less consumable matter exists as each day passes. Similarly, humans are struggling to survive the harsh conditions of this reality; some people turn to cannibalistic habits in order to receive their next meal. However, this novel follows two outliers in this grim society. The Man and the Boy both refuse to turn to cannibalism to survive. Ironically, their morals toward the end of the novel stray from the morals witness in the beginning. As the geographical conditions get
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The duo lives in a world where, “Nights grey beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some glaucoma dimming away the world” (McCarthy 3). The ever-growing darkness alludes to the direness of their situation; as each day gets darker it will be progressively more difficult for the Boy and the Man to survive. As a result, they will have less time to search for a source of food and travel toward their destination, the south. In order to compensate for the increasing vulnerability, the Man begins to stray from the path of moral code that he established with both himself and his son. His son tries to reason with him about some of his decisions, but he continues to assure the Boy he has only committed these moral acts of treason in order to protect the Boy. Furthermore, this eternal darkness and dying world closely resembles a nuclear winter described in Judeo-Christian mythology. Carl Grindley, faculty member of the City University of New York, discovered the reoccurring similarities between the biblical apocalypse and the disastrous situation in The Road. The similarities are visible in, “[F]ire from heaven, the trees and the grass burned up, ships destroyed, all sea life dead, the sun and the moon blotted out, plagues and earthquakes, cities full of unburied dead people, and so on” (Grindley 12). These environmental elements cause a steady …show more content…
The dark and nearly desolate world causes the Man’s carelessness and impulsiveness to drastically increase over time. At the same time, these characteristics help the man keep the Boy alive up until his death. However, the Man unconsciously loses pieces of himself in order to ensure the survival of the Boy. The darkness of the world slowly seeped its way into the Man as he inhaled the air around him; darkening the ways by which he performs. By the end of the novel, the Man has completely shifted his moral code to justify the gruesome acts he committed on his
The duo lives in a world where, “Nights grey beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some glaucoma dimming away the world” (McCarthy 3). The ever-growing darkness alludes to the direness of their situation; as each day gets darker it will be progressively more difficult for the Boy and the Man to survive. As a result, they will have less time to search for a source of food and travel toward their destination, the south. In order to compensate for the increasing vulnerability, the Man begins to stray from the path of moral code that he established with both himself and his son. His son tries to reason with him about some of his decisions, but he continues to assure the Boy he has only committed these moral acts of treason in order to protect the Boy. Furthermore, this eternal darkness and dying world closely resembles a nuclear winter described in Judeo-Christian mythology. Carl Grindley, faculty member of the City University of New York, discovered the reoccurring similarities between the biblical apocalypse and the disastrous situation in The Road. The similarities are visible in, “[F]ire from heaven, the trees and the grass burned up, ships destroyed, all sea life dead, the sun and the moon blotted out, plagues and earthquakes, cities full of unburied dead people, and so on” (Grindley 12). These environmental elements cause a steady …show more content…
The dark and nearly desolate world causes the Man’s carelessness and impulsiveness to drastically increase over time. At the same time, these characteristics help the man keep the Boy alive up until his death. However, the Man unconsciously loses pieces of himself in order to ensure the survival of the Boy. The darkness of the world slowly seeped its way into the Man as he inhaled the air around him; darkening the ways by which he performs. By the end of the novel, the Man has completely shifted his moral code to justify the gruesome acts he committed on his