John Hillcoat

Cormac McCarthy’s tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing, yet deeply personal work, published in 2006. A setting stripped of all natural life with a father and son as the sole survivors of a post nuclear holocaust. The Road is essentially an existential tale as the father and son have one focus: to survive and to attain some meaning in their lives. Without any cultural and economic influences, the father and son must carve out their existences from a world devoid of life. The only meaning…

Dark, dusty, lonely. Afraid, tired, hungry. Words that describe the life of those living in the faded, deceased country of what was once America. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, depicts the long and difficult post-apocalyptic journey a man and his son endure. Papa and the Boy have roles that completely reverse by the end of the book. They also go back and forth from maturity and growth when the Boy literally grows older, and when choosing right from wrong. The journey begins with Papa reaching…

In The Road is a quote that reads “No list of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of beauty and grace such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you” (McCarthy 46) The boy mentioned and the man are the main characters of the novel. In reading, the story it is apparent that the boy and the man have a very dependent…

The novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy follows a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic world. They are forced to endure many tough situations, which make them test themselves and continually push their limits. Over time, the boy starts to become detached from the horrors he witnesses, which shows that morals are shed when one sees too many cruel acts. In the beginning of the book, the boy is desperately trying to hold onto his morals, no matter what he sees. Along the road Papa and the boy…

Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, shows how a young boy grows to be independent. This makes me believe that McCarthy’s novel is a coming-of-age story. Through various aspects of his novel, McCarthy shows how humans are hybridized; we are a mix between dependency and autonomy and that determines our identity. As we learn, grow, and mature, we must find a balance between the spectrum of independence and community. In The Road, the boy was depicted as dependent on the father. If the boy needed…

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a story of a father and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Together, they walk through a wasteland searching for necessities essential for survival, while trying to avoid roaming bands of cannibals. Along the way their morals are revealed in the choices they make to survive. McCarthy develops the theme of morality by showing the conflict between the boy’s and father’s moral impulses, especially when moral choices affect their own and others’…

Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is a bleak parable chronicling the journey of a father and son across a desolate, post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy’s work typically focuses on themes such as human nature, theodicy and the evil within society, with an overriding nihilistic worldview. The Road follows through on this, with McCarthy prophesying our destruction as a consequence of these societal flaws, and reminding modern readers of how much we have to lose if we remain on this path of…

Golden Hair and Yellow Parkas The Road by Cormac Mccarthy is a harrowing journey of day-to-day survival that speaks to every individual in a sense. It sculpts subconscious feelings of our insecurity of hope for the future through symbolism by color. Yellow becomes a flag, it is the signal fire for objects that correlate to hope. Use of this color conveys the ideal of optimism in the face of loss. It is the ability to continue in a world of nothing. Yellow is the first color mentioned following…

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, I think shows assimilation throughout the novel. You can see the man and his son slowly adapt and adjust into the world they are now living in. The world has just gone through an apocalypse and there are not many resources left, so they have learned how to scavenge for any resources there may be. In this novel they wake up not knowing if they will find any food or not. They have learned to ration themselves so that their food will last longer. The man and the…

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” (Friedrick Nietzshe). In the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy the main characters must face this everyday Having ambitions, goals, and dreams is both exciting and one of the most difficult things humans will ever experience. Along the why mankind will also learn some of the hardest truths along the way. Showing us what a post-apocalyptic world can do to our present day humans, cultured environment, and accomplishments…