Cormac McCarthy

Usually, when one thinks of the future, they think of flying cars and robots, but what most people don’t think of is a damaged earth with the constant threat of losing all it’s life. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a thrilling tale that takes readers on a journey of adventure, suspense and survival. The novel, taking place in a post-apocalyptic setting of a deathly winter, includes a father and his son journeying across the United States with the incentive of finding food and shelter to escape their imminent death. Despite the fact that death is inevitable in this time and human beings are conforming to either cannibalism or suicide, McCarthy creates two strong, independent characters with the fortitude to persevere through the most dangerous…

In the Anthropocene we are met with an imminent realization that climate change will alter the current way of life as we know it today. Coming to terms with this knowledge is never easy and artist from around the world have contributed their views and ideas on what the future may potentially be. Cormac McCarthy brings us into a world that has been morphed by an unknown catastrophe. This story follows a classic McCarthy structure by being as vague as possible with the names of the characters and…

The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy in 2006, is about the journey of a father and son through a post-apocalyptic world. The father and son, referred to as “Boy and Papa” in the book, have to find a way to navigate this new world and the people that come with it. McCarthy shows when in life or death situations people will become only focused on surviving. They often forget morals they have developed and become selfish and only concerned with themselves. Although Boy and and Papa do not eat…

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…

An interest to me that comes up in the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is survival. The Road is 287 pages telling a journey, in third person omniscient, of a man and his son on a road trying to survive in a world where a catastrophic event caused destruction of human civilization. Death is a constant worry as The Man and The son continue on the road. There is no electricity or phones, all stores are empty, no houses for shelter, plant life is gone, and no fish in the water. In the novel,…

DEAD WORLD, FIRE SURVIVES “Where all was burnt to ash before them no fires were to be had and the nights were long and dark and cold beyond anything they’d yet encountered. Cold to crack the stones. To take your life” (McCarthy 14). Cormac McCarthy writes of an apocalyptic world in The Road. In a world collapsing from an explosion; a man and his son fight to survive with fire on their side. Fire is not only used to give them hope of survival, but also represents their ethics, knowledge, and…

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road contains an excellent example of survival instincts in a destructive world and of how a person’s love can motivate someone to continue on the right path. Since the novel is dedicated to McCarthy’s son John Francis, some readers like Oprah Winfrey have stated that the novel is similar to a love story. The narrative describes a post-apocalyptic world where two main characters, the man and the boy, travel along the abandoned state roads to reach the South for better…

losing every material possession once held dear, only to be placed in a world all too dark, desolate, and dead. Pain and suffering become a new normal as a grasp on uncertain life loosens and hope becomes a treasured rarity. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a touching tale, mirroring the aforementioned circumstance with a poetic and realistic nature. A man and his young boy are the two main characters, unencumbered by others and remaining nameless throughout the entire book. The story is told…

Do Life or Death Situations Challenge Morality? “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.” (3) Cormac McCarthy greets the reader with opening lines, stern, humorless, and a tone that sets the tone for the entire story. A nameless man and his son are the main characters in…

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, disregards many standards put in place by other writers. None of the characters have proper names, dialogue is not put in quotes, and the characters are not complex. Complex means that the character goes through some sort of change. It’s a very common literary element. In this story there are two main characters and neither of them have an apparent change in personality throughout the book. The Road seems to have no complex characters whatsoever, and that’s a…