Hope In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

In the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy one question seems to appear in just about everyone’s life. One of life and death. Some say yes, some say no, and some do not know. But, this question if it is worth living constantly pops up throughout the book. McCarthy first presents this question through the mother of the boy in a flashback. This is where she decides to kill herself after giving birth. This triggers the man to thus be questioning life in this new post-apocalyptic world. The man claims that his boy “carries the fire” and is a sign of god 's’ existence, this view pushes the man to continue his journey, but as demonstrated on page 12 by this quote “ You forget what you want to remember, and remember what you want to forget “ we can …show more content…
One of the beacons would be the bunker with food and etc. they stumble upon. Another would be the ship they come across which also refuels them with food, hope, and etc. but we later see this is a false feeling of hope because the journey they precede proves no easier. Another really good quote in the book comes from page 96 and says “ The snow whispered down in the stillness and the sparks rose and dimmed and died in the eternal blackness “ this quote may be a personal favorite from the book because this one line has such significance, first it tells of snow whispering down in which snow is often viewed as a symbol of renewal and birth thus giving the sense that the world may heal itself over time. Then you have the sparks from the fire rising up only to die in eternal blackness which contradicts the symbol of the snow in terms that even if the world begins to be revived it will only fall again into eternal blackness which crushes all hope provided from the snow. This duality cuts into the man once again leaving him to ponder upon whether or not it is worth living in the barren post-apocalyptic world. The last quote i would like to use is from page 258 in which a conversation between the man and boy goes “ Stop it/ I cant stop it/ What do you think would have happened to us if we hadnt caugh him? Just stop it/ I’m trying “ This quote has a bit of significance because it is almost like the answer to the question on if it is worth living, to the boy we can see that the whole point of living is to find a purpose in life which is considerably selfish compared to the man’s selfless motive for living which is to prepare his son for this new post-apocalyptic world they now are living in. This leaves the reader to infer