John Hillcoat

In the novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a young boy and his father travel along a stretch of roadways amidst a post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once the United States of America; with the goal of making it to the coast to establish what they hope to be a better and safer life. The journey to the edge of what was once a peaceful and prosperous nation is a long and grueling trek. Along the way the duo encounter fiends that threaten their safety and well being. Though life of any kind is rare…

The story is centered on the relationship of the nameless father and son traveling and surviving this inhumane world. “The backstory of Mr. McCarthy's novel is deeply personal, springing from his relationship with his 11-year-old son, John, whom he had with his third wife, Jennifer” (Miller 1). The fact the McCarthy’s story is centered on a similar relationship as his and his son demonstrates how “The Road” incorporates the writer’s life within the story plot. “As death bears down in…

The novel “The Road”, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a story talking about a father and a son in a world that everything is totally destroyed. For them, it is an unprecedented catastrophe. Even though the condition is hard to have the good characteristics in human nature, the father still makes his best effort to protect his son and protect his son’s good characteristics. The father died at last, but his son does live because of his protection. In the movie “Life is Beautiful”, the father Guido…

The son warns his father, “I have to watch you all the time” (39). When the father promises to take food, but later refuses it to give to the boy, the son urges, “If you break little promises, you’ll break big ones”(39) Without it being presented in the narration, conversation between the two alludes to man’s promise to not leave him alone in the world. The boy is basically saying the man may not keep that promise either, thus foreshadowing to the end of the story when the father dies and leaves…

In the post-apocalyptic novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy outlines a gray desolate story about and man and his son travelling a road riddled with macabre obstacles to reach the Southern Coast. The man and the boy begin travelling because it will soon be winter, and winter will be especially inclement, the world is covered in ash, which creates a dark blanket over the Earth. For, before the birth of the boy a never identified catastrophe ravaged the earth with fire, leaving few…

Two Sides of Compassion “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” -Dalai Lama XIV. In this dystopian novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a father and his son must make their way along an abandoned road to arrive at the coast, where there was hope for survival. The idea of survival in the novel exemplifies the different forms of compassion an individual is able to take, ultimately portraying that innocence is the fundamental source to pure…

How does never differ to be from what never was? In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, A man and his son struggle to survive in a post apocalyptic world that continually tests their morality. However, the contrasting perspectives between these characters illustrates how life experiences can affect a person’s level of compassion. The man’s divided life experiences, pre and post apocalypse, allows him to more fully grasp the degradation of society, which makes him much less compassionate towards…

Hope is a feeling of expectation or desire for a certain thing to happen. In The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, the Man and Boy are forced to rely on hope and persistency in order to survive in the apocalyptic world they’re living in. Throughout the novel, there are many symbols to represent hope; such as the bunker, the ocean, and the fire. Having hope can give one the ability to persevere through hardship. First, the bunker gives them hope to overcome starvation. Hunger was one major issue…

Imagine a world where everything we known in the year of 2015 suddenly vanished; turned into ashes. All the rules and morals we once had were destroyed along with the planet Earth. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, illustrates what its’ like for a young boy and his father surviving in a post-apocalyptic world without the presence of a woman. Throughout the novel with the use of allusions and vast imagery, women can be presented as ‘weak’ whereas it is the father and son who continue along this…

A definition of being a human means having and showing emotions for things. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, was published in 2006 and winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. This book tells a story of an unnamed catastrophe that has struck the world. A journey is taken by a young boy and his father who travel through the rough terrain of the United States. McCarthy uses the setting of an apocalyptic world to illustrate how the presence of compassion and forgiveness overcome evil and create a…