The Road

Grab a cup of dark coffee and a warm blanket. At least you will have the pleasures of modern life even if the characters can’t. I recently read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I have some thoughts about it that I wanted to share with you all, BUT be warned there will be spoilers. 

The book is set in a world after the apocalypse. This means that the world has ended and the world and other people are trying to kill them. This book is centred around 2 people: a man and his son, a young boy. The boy is likely to have been born after the start of the apocalypse, and this gives him a different worldview compared to the father, who is much more aware of the horrors of mankind and what humanity has lost. The main characters are juxtapositions of one another. The man is insanity; he is the adult. The boy is exactly that—a child. The man fears the world around him because he doesn’t know the world to be anything other than pain. He is used to the horrors of mankind and what they are capable of. The boy, on the other hand, regardless of being born after the apocalypse, has only had his father. He relies on his father, who always talks about how they are good guys that carry the fire and help other people. However, as the book goes on, he gets disillusioned with the idea of his father since the “stories are not true... in the stories we’re always helping people and we dont help people” (McCarthy, 268). The boy, as the book progresses, is less willing to speak and is upset at the father because the father does not listen to him. When the pair are placed in situations where they have the choice of risking their lives to gain food or supplies. The man always chooses to do so, while the child does not. This is a great showing of the duty of being an adult and the disparity of being a child. The father is not allowed to be afraid. He has to always do what is terrifying because otherwise, they will starve. He has his child to look after, and without the insanity he has to continue approaching possible dangerous situations, he knows that they will starve, and that is unacceptable. He has a job appointed by God to take care of that child, and without doubt he must fulfil it regardless of his relationship with his god. That is his child, and any parent should know the feeling of being willing to do anything to take care of and protect their child. Sometimes you meet something or someone you treasure more than anything in the world, even yourself. And to the man, his love towards the child and the child himself is that what is anchoring him to this world. The child, however, is fearful and is always worrying. He is aware that the world is terrible—people have used his life as leverage against his father. He knows his father is in pain because he is always coughing up blood at night. He is fearful for what will happen and that is normal to everyone. In life, do you ever really know what is going to happen? No. You can never expect things to happen the way you plan, even the things you expect to turn out for the worse. At the end of the book, before the father passes away, the boy asks the man what will happen to him and what will happen when the father is gone. The father then responds that “goodness will find the little boy” since it has done so before and will do so again (McCarthy 281). He reassures the son of his future.

A few themes that I could think of when thinking about this book are: love and responsibility are anchors; you must uphold your responsibilities; and you will never know the future. I have previously touched on the topic of not knowing what will happen. I have yet to speak in depth about how love anchors the man. The man is going to levels that are more extreme as the book goes on and continuously runs into encounters with other people. The more dangerous things he sees, I believe terrify him. At the end of the book, when he meets a man that took their belongings, the man proceeds to be more cruel than necessary by having the thief take off all his clothes, including his ripping at the seams shoes, even though it is winter. This makes the boy upset because he is pleading with the man to spare the thief because his actions are killing the thief. Yet the man does not. He is losing his grasp on his sanity as the book progresses. The theme of upholding your responsibilities is demonstrated through the father taking care of the son. The father’s job is “to take care of” the boy (McCarthy 77). He makes sure to kill anyone that could harm his child or to sacrifice himself so the child may live. He does this not only because it is his responsibility but because he loves his child. I mentioned that the man loves the child because the child is something that he treasures more than himself, but it is visible that he loves his child because “he held him all night, dozing off and waking in terror, feeling for the boy’s heart” when the child is sick (McCarthy 247). The father loving and taking care of the child through the end of the world shows the theme of responsibility. 

This story overall was a fascinating read because of the depth of the story. It had some more easy-to-pick-up themes but some others that were more difficult to see unless you had some prior knowledge. If you were to reread the story, you could understand a new perspective. I suggest reading this book because it was quite enrapturing to me. Now to sprinkle in my own interests into this blog post. I feel as if this book is like blood on snow. It is like fresh first snow lying on the ground but piles up the feet deep, suffocating the people underneath it. The blood draping and staining the snow forever. There is the afterscent of gunpowder too. The gunpowder and smoke of a gun that just went off because of a beast aiming to take your life in a clearing in the woods. There is no safety because the beast knows the woods far better than you do and you are its prey. The clearing is helpful for the beast because it can see and chase after you with quickening speed. It is helpful to you because, under the spell of night, you cannot see a thing. By being in a clearing, you at least can prevent blood spilt from falling and breaking your skin. The book also has a scent of scissors—the rust on old scissors, to be specific. The rust because it is after the apocalypse and everything has ended. All the comforts of the world you know are lying there unused yet unusable. There is the taste of soda. The fizziness of the drink is familiar and feels like you are in warmth and safety. The sunlight is directly on you, and you’re lazing around your living room. Then, when the familiar taste is gone, you are back. You are back in the cold. You feel the wetness seep into your socks, past your worn shoes. Shoes that are being held together by shee will and stitches. You are back to being on display for the world, like you are an ornament inside the snow globe. 

I hope you enjoyed reading or listening to me talk about the book and maybe got motivated to read this book for yourself. I input something in the end to help set a mood that I felt that the story made me feel as a bit of a line-and-hook to get you interested. Feel free to leave comments or suggestions.