by Ryan Brenner

Created on: March 07, 2010

Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road, is a dismal and often depressing look at a post apocalyptic world in which few humans are left.  The story centers on two travelers, a father and son, who are trying to get south to the coast, but the reader is never sure what they expect to find when they arrive there.

McCarthy chooses not to give his two characters names.  He refers to them only as “the boy” and “the man.”  The two of them share a unique bond, and are each other’s sole purpose for survival in the bleak ash covered landscape that they travel.  In a world where all sense of human dignity, love, and kindness seem to be gone the two strive to carry “the fire.” “The Fire,” a term created by the man to give the young boy hope, is the sense of moral goodness that the rest of the world has obviously lost.

The two journey through a world destroyed by an event that is never quite known to the reader.  This brilliant withholding of vital information by McCarthy serves to only intensify the chill felt on each page.  There world has been reduced to the most fundamental elements of survival.  The search for food and clean water are never ending, and will keep you turning the pages.  As the reader, you will feel the hunger pains of the two characters as they search each abandoned house for food.

The father’s simple need to love and care for his son is very stirring.  There is nothing he will not do and there is no price he will not pay.  He will even ponder the unthinkable to keep his son from harm.  In turn, is the son’s compassion for the other refugees they meet on the road, even those who could intend to do them harm.  The boy genuinely wants to help everyone, even those who have done wrong.  When life is stripped to its simplest and most basic things it is amazing the compassion you are then capable.   

McCarthy’s often simplistic language and style allows the reader to feel the raw intensity of life being stripped down to only the essential things needed to survive.  There is little punctuation used, outside of the necessary periods and question marks to end sentences.  The message is simple, in this world words, spoken with honesty and heart-felt passion between father and son are all that really matter.  Proper punctuation and sentence structure is lost in the most basic need to communicate with the person you love most in the world. 

McCarthy’s dark tale leaves us disgusted with the evil, cruelty, and selfishness of humanity.  Yet, in the end you are left with hope.  Hope that love, and self-sacrifice in a world turned upside down are worth it.  You will question your own life, asking yourself what the important things in life really are.  These two characters had nothing but each other, and yet, somehow, that was enough for the two of them.

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