Cormac Mccarthy The Road Essay

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, takes place in a post apocalyptic world that is dark and covered by ash. The book follows a man and his son as they try to survive with little supply and each other. Throughout the book, the man and the boy are faced with many challenges. A frequent challenge being the people they encounter, which are often the bad guys. The bad guys are people that have lost all ties with the concept of society and are the most gruesome representation of survivors. The Road puts forth a dark and pessimistic view of humanity as shown by the fear the man has and through the interactions and actions of people in the postapocalyptic world proving that humans are only thinking of themselves when there is no society. The man’s sole …show more content…
People act, in the post apocalyptic world, purely so they survive. People protect themselves, do not help others, and do what they need to do to survive even if it goes against their morals, causing them to change. The man and the boy go into a house, hoping to find some food or supplies. They end up finding a locked door leading to a basement. The boy wants nothing to do with the house and asks his father to leave multiple times, but the man is so focused on finding anything that is useful that he ignores his son. They end up breaking open the door and finding a dark, cold basement full of people, “huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female...a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of the blackened and burnt.” (McCarthy 110). The men and women beg for help and the man pushes the boy up the stairs away from them. The man quickly realized that these people are kept as a food supply for cannibals and the house is a way for them to capture more people. That situation reveals that people are so desperate for food, they are tricking others into thinking that the house is a safe place to be and then eating them. They act solely to keep themselves fed and did not care when they have lost their