Symbolism And Metaphor In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Improved Essays
“He climbed the bank through the cane to check the road. Dark and black and trackless where it crossed the open country” (McCarthy 202).

In the book The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, a boy and his father are struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The boy and his father haven’t eaten for a while and they had just discussed who got to drink the dirty water they collected from the river bank. The father began to look for the road in order to return to their journey of searching for a survivable environment. When he climbed the bank to check the road. Since the road is suppose to symbolize the boys and his father 's future, the description could symbolize the events they will come across or how they are feeling at the moment.
…show more content…
He was burning. He picked him up and carried him to the fire” (McCarthy 247).

During the book “The Road”, by Cormac McCarthy, a father and a boy attempt to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where they search for an environment where they have a possibility to survive. This quote was taken from around the time the boy was beginning to feel ill which had the father worried about his health and his survival. When the father cupped his son 's forehead in his hands, it shows how affectionate he is towards the boy, even when the world they live in is not so lovable. This enforces the reason of their hope and thrive for survival, that the only reason for them to live is each other. The boy was burning with a fever which could mean his death and illness, but then the father took him to the fire, which is equally hot and burning. The difference between the two is that the boys fever represents how the boys life is in danger when the fire represents the hope and life. Therefore, when the father takes the boy near the fire, it represents how much he wants his son to survive even when the possibilities of the boy dying and obvious and highly
…show more content…
There was a point in the book when both the boy and the father knew that the father was going to die, this quote describes how the boy feels and that he represents in the world he was born in. He was the light in the darkness with could represent the boys link to religion since he was the only hope or thrive the father had to survive. The fading light could also be the boy when since the boy is the light in this world and he is losing his hope or will to survive with his father dying. When the author wrote “He woke in the darkness, coughing softly” (McCarthy 280). McCarthy could be not only describing the boy in the moment, but him in the dark post-apocalyptic world since he was born in the darkness, was left struggling for a reason to survive for a short period which could represent the coughing softly when he awoke. They boy lay listening to the breathing of the father to assure that his father is still alive. He sat near the fire, which represents the hope, and watched his father while wrapped in the blanket, which could represent him attempting to hold on to something to shield him from the reality of his father dying. This could be since they boy won 't have anything to hold on to in a while since they live for each other. The drip of water the boy is listening to could symbolize the life source in the environment and how there is

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Furthermore, many symbols and details, from the beginning to end of the story, lean towards the warnings of desire. The symbol of the cigarette in the description, “the tip of her cigarette glowing red like a distant stoplight” (17-18), initiates early on into the short story a warning sign. The symbolism of the cigarette as a stoplight explains to readers that the grandmother is about to express a cautionary tale. The grandmother eventually explains the descendants and ancestry of their family as a unit that cannot be broken apart because of the spirit of the river within them (41-42). Namely, the amount of detail and description the grandmother uses to explain the ancestry to her grandchildren in this particular section shows the significance of the value of family in this story.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Day in and day out, the duo travel in a wasteland and encounter some horrific situations like “the wall [that] held a frieze of human heads, all faced alike, dried and caved with their taunt grins and shrunken eyes” (90). The mother sensed that it would be like this before she took her life and said to the man “ [you] won’t survive for yourself” (57) but for their son. He was the only reason to survive in this world. During this time, McCarthy inserts the symbolic fire into the story, which represents humanity and it is the son who holds that fire. He is the one that would be able to keep humanity alive in their barbaric world.…

    • 1664 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine the world as we don’t know it. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, a boy and his papa try to maintain humanity while finding their way through broken America after a devastating catastrophe. McCarthy argues that people isolate themselves out of fear in order to seek protection from the greater dangers in the world around them. Papa and the boy physically both isolate and de-isolate themselves from the dark world geographically. McCarthy compares the Sea to an unknown world to show that the once shining Sea that used to bring happiness now brings mood of only melancholy and grim. "…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Road Hope Analysis

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the post-apocalyptic environment the man and the boy live in, hope is found in the darkest of places. Even through trials and tribulations, the father and son remain optimistic throughout their journey. In certain sections of the book, it seems as though elements of despair greatly outweigh elements of hope. This is an observation of the book based on first glance; further examination of the text shows that elements of hope are…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In post-apocalyptic stories, the world is portrayed in a disastrous and devastating form. The death of animals or human beings would be such a normal phenomenon under the circumstance, and everything is saturated with sadness and desperation. However, there is usually still a small number of survivors who demonstrate love and morality, being the last hope of humanity. In The Road written by Cormac McCarthy, the survived father and son are two typical examples of this idea. They show love and kindness to each other and the people they meet.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a novel that diverges from the customary standards regarding format of how a novel is written. McCarthy tends to ignore the usage of quotations and apostrophes and also writes in a splintered fashion especially in the beginning of the book adding the tone of minimalistic times. He never reveals the name of the characters and only refers to them as The Boy and The Man as it is written in third person omniscient though it often seems as if the novel was written in first person which adds to the idiosyncrasy of the novel. On the contrary The Road is extremely detail oriented which immensely contributes to the overall theme and tone of the book in addition to putting the reader in the characters shoes. The Road is a fiction piece about a post apocalyptic desolated world centered around a boy and a man trying to fight through constant fear and inhumane…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During a time where the struggle to survive is a violent battle, the young boy’s compassion and concern for others is uncommon, portraying the child as an inhuman figure. The boy’s striking qualities cause the father to believe that the child is a God, giving the man hope in the barbaric world. In addition, the boy separates the man from death as he is his father’s reason to survive and resist giving up. The man continues to rise every morning as his only hope in the world lies beside him, breathing. Moreover, the father relies on the confirmation of his son’s life to ensure hope still exists every morning.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Road, a post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy, follows the journey of survival of the Man and the Boy in a burnt world covered in ash. To escape the incoming cold weather, they decide to head down south to the coast. With nothing but a pistol, a cart of supplies, and each other, they must cope with hunger, thirst, and the dangers of the land. Along the way, they experience close encounters with bands of cannibals who either will try to enslave or kill them. Throughout the novel, the son, afraid of becoming one of the cannibals or “bad guys,” questions whether they remain the “good guys” whenever the father does something morally questionable to ensure their survival.…

    • 1617 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The man’s love for his son leads him to selflessly give up himself, so he can provide the boy with the physical, emotional, and spiritual necessities he feels are important. The strong religious base the man has becomes apparent in how he views the boy. Being trapped in such a dark world could easily bring on the idea that trying to raise a child is impossible or even crueler for the child than death.…

    • 1789 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In this way, the boy causes the father to look at the world through a different lens. Rather than his perspective as the protector. Issues like this appear multiple times throughout the book especially on pages eighty-four to eight six, where the boy wants to help the little boy. There is one person that the man and the boy help. A character named Ely.…

    • 1534 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Fleeting World Cormac McCarthy’s The Road depicts a post apocalyptic world devastated by cataclysms unbeknownst to the reader. The world, seemingly set in the United States, is barren, desolate, and cruel. Cult groups of cannibals roam the the unyielding lands in search of their next victims while the the threat of famine and disease is ever looming.…

    • 1380 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Water, one of the highest of holy rebirth references in existence. In The Road by Cormac McCarthy the two characters, the boy and the man, take a long journey, including a struggle of death versus life shown through the use of symbols to represent both sides of the struggle. One of the heaviest symbols in the novel is McCarthy's use of biblical references in many forms to portray feelings of hope and rebirth/resurrection, while also showing filth and irony in that of the water in the new yet extinct world. McCarthy presents the symbol of water in a very Biblical rich manor. “One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout pieces of literature, whether novels or short stories, imagery is an important literary device. Without the addition of imagery, readers would not be able to have emotional or sensational responses. In the interesting story of “The Road”, by Cormac McCarthy, readers encounter several situations where imagery is a prominent element which helps paint a better overall understand of the setting, plot and characters. Early on in “The Road”, readers are faced with a father and son looking to get to the coast in a post-apocalyptic United States. The two are looking to find a warm area to evade the freezing winters of the North, but must endure several weeks of hardships and horrors.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, by allotting them the special task of “carrying the fire” McCarthy attributes defined godly features to father and son. The father, just before he dies, tells the son that the fire is inside him because the boy questions the mere existence of it (TR 279). Søfting argues that […] it could well be that the father is right and that this is how we are meant to see these two remarkable characters; as people chosen by God to carry the light on through the darkness, to preserve humanity within themselves as examples, and that this is the reason why they seem somehow predestined to avoid moral degeneration (Søfting 2013:…

    • 2355 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shockingly, the father drives passed them and proceeds toward his destination. Looking at the relations between the father and son, the reader gets a better understanding of the message the author is trying to send. This particular scene portrays the love connection that is shared between father and son. A connection between two family members are meant to have a strong bond. The fact that they are speaking highly of each…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics