Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

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In everyone's life they are eventually approached with one profound question, ‘who are you?’. It works as an impetus as one does not answer with haste- but stops and deliberates as to what contributes to their answer. In most cases it could be a job or materialistic possessions, but in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a novel based upon the neverending fight for survival between a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, no such things exist.Therefore the concept of basing identity after mere belongings would mean nothing- provoking people to reevaluate their lives. Due to this concept, in The Road, McCarthy indicates that true identity is the beliefs and morals one upholds in times of utter and complete desperation. There is a definite…show more content…
They were. Like us. (140) Even as they faced death head-on, the son was willing to give up the food and keep looking, in order to keep his good judgment and be labeled as the "good guy". Only after being certainly reassured by the father does the boy agree to eat, standing firmly in their beliefs on necessary morals. It is because of their strong-will to do what’s right that they can continue their journey with a clear conscious, focusing on their goals- not their past. With difficult times come difficult decisions and the manner in which the man and boy act in those relentless times demonstrate who they are in a desolate world. But every person has a past from what their actions are based upon. The man had a presumably good life, spent with his wife, who kills herself in order to escape the nefarious bearings of the new world. Later on his journey and after many painful hours thinking of the inevitable death of his son- a constant reminder given to him by the memory of his wife- the man decides to end it. He pulls out his tethered wallet, including many things, but none as important as his driver's license and a picture of his late wife. "He pitched the sweatblackened piece of leather into the woods and sat holding the photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and walked away"(51). The fact that the man left his memories, his past life, his old identity, represents him starting anew. He can focus on the efficacy of taking care of the one thing

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