Bad dreams, on the other hand, are reassuring because they demonstrate that the man and boy are still persevering in the world they inhabit. Ely is surprised by seeing the boy, having convinced himself that he never thought he'd see a child again. It looks as if, even at the southern coast, life isn't sustainable. The man remembers an evening spent on the lake with his uncle. The boy becomes frightened and repeatedly asks if they can leave. Cormac McCarthy’s tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing yet deeply personal work. The father develops a bad cough from the horrid weather. He wants to know if it's blue. bookmarked pages associated with this title. Teachers and parents! They keep traveling, following the man’s map. The boy is scared of this house, as he is of many of the houses. The first few pages of the novel situate us in the landscape: ash, isolation, and a long road to travel. The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy.The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and almost all life. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of a father and son traveling through a post apocalyptic America. The man had planned on killing the boy if he himself were to die (to save the boy from the cruel world), but the man finds he cannot go through with this. The Road not Taken by Robert Frost: Summary and Analysis The Road not Taken is an inspirational poem by Robert Frost that tries to inspire us to rise above the petty and do things extraordinary. He worries about the other little boy for the rest of the novel. Cormac McCarthy's The Road May Have the Scariest Passage in All of Literature. The Road Goes Ever On Analysis First Stanza. The boy is very concerned with making sure they are "carrying the fire," assuring himself that he and his father are the good guys as opposed to the bad guys (who eat dogs and other people). The boy leaves his father covered in a blanket. Then he gives the pistol to the boy. “On this road there were no godspoke men. In the house, the man shaves and cuts both his own hair and the boy's — another moment in the novel that recalls a father/son ritual of the old world. from your Reading List will also remove any The man and boy flee just as the roadagents return. When they set out again, the man is even weaker than before. I wrote a draft of a review at the time and sent it. The man believes the boy will die and he is terrified and enraged. Lesson Summary. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat. The plot begins as they are traveling south down the road towards the coast, somewhere in the Southeastern United States. The Man. Here's an in-depth analysis of the most important parts, in an easy-to-understand format. A man and a boy sleep in the woods, the man comforted by the boy’s presence. The Road is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic survival film directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy.The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.. While the boy sleeps, the man reflects upon one of his dreams of a creature with dead eyes. The man has a fever, which causes the two to camp in the woods for over four days. Directed by John Hillcoat. The man stitches up his leg and they press on. The Road Not Taken is one of Robert Frosts most familiar and most popular poems. He and the boy make their camp close to the beach, plundering the ship each day to see what else they can find. Taking greenhouse gas analysis on the road, er, rails. The man whittles fake bullets from a tree branch and puts them in the pistol with the one true bullet. With Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall. After more travel and starvation they find a house with more canned food. He continues to the house that's adjacent to the orchard, where he finds a tank of water. It's unclear whether he kills the man, but when the boy asks, his father tells him that the arrow shooter lived. May 14, 2013 Link Copied. The man, too, is all the boy has. Throughout the novel there are moments like this one at the waterfall, scenes that prove the bond between fathers and sons still exist in this new world. The man leaves the boy to sleep while he explores, and he finds an old apple orchard with some dried out apples. The Road Characters. The question of his future, and the future of humanity remains. One day the boy gets a fever, and the despairing man won’t leave his side. The man views his son as a holy object, something sacred. The man tells the boy stories of justice and courage from the old world in the hopes that such stories will keep the fire alive in the boy. The final statement in this short quotation first places an emphasis on the importance of the present. Having trouble understanding The Road? The father cares for his son, and teaches his son, and worries about his son's future under such uncertain circumstances. Excitement is overrated. It's a tender moment that suggests lessons that fathers would have taught their sons in the old world. The protagonists, a man and a boy, his young son, are never given names. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Remnants of the old world often — like houses, billboards, and hotels — clash with the reality of the new world, reminding the man of the life he once lived. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. The Road By Cormac McCarthy Website made by Rachel Vanderkley: Technical Analysis: Section One: (Pages 1 - 72) Technique: No quotations during dialogue Example: Page 19: What is that papa? The man's dreams soften and he knows he's going to die. Summary Read a Plot Overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter Summary and Analysis. In this landscape everything is dead and burnt, the sun is blotted out by ash, all plants and animals are extinct, and most humans are either lone travelers or members of cannibalistic communes. The Road takes place after some unknown apocalyptic event has nearly wiped out the earth. If your book discussion club is up for the dark themes, it is a book that will leave you wanting to discuss it with others. Analysis. It is a brief sanctuary from the world above. Word Count: 564. His father reluctantly gives away their supplies. The Road is the most readable of [McCarthy's] works, and consistently brilliant in its imagining of the posthumous condition of nature and civilization." Here's an in-depth analysis of the most important parts, in an easy-to-understand format. But they survive the night and go undiscovered. The novel ends with a note of mystery — the mystery of the bond that exists between father and son; the mystery of the boy's and humanity's future; and the mystery of this new world and what it will be like now that it has been forever changed. A man and his pre-teen son, who was born after the apocalypse, are currently on the road, their plan to walk to the coast and head south where the man hopes there will be a more hospitable environment in which to live. The novel ends with the boy welcomed into a new family in this new world that he must learn to inhabit. All rights reserved. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world, date and place unnamed, though the reader can assume it's somewhere in what was the United States because the man tells the boy that they're walking the "state roads." Some unnamed catastrophe has scourged the world to a burnt-out cinder, inhabited by the last remnants of mankind and a very few surviving dogs and fungi. The boy asks his father about the sea. He retrieves it for the boy and lets him drink it. The man fills some jars with water, gathers the dried apples, and takes them back to the boy. The man and boy are cold and starving, as they are for most of the novel. The man and boy decide to leave their camp on the beach, and they pare down their food stores so that the cart is more manageable. What happens in general life is that every person keeps looking for convenient routes to success. and any corresponding bookmarks? It's a dam. The Road is a brutally astonishing work. Later that night, the man and Ely talk about the old world, about death, God, and the future — particularly, about what it would be like to be the last human on the planet. Summary. After they have done so the man and his son continue to make there way south, traveling the road one day at a time. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Note: I first saw "The Road" in September at the Toronto Film Festival, as one of eight films I saw in three days. Because this is a post-apocalyptic story, the exemption of these punctuation elements might serve as a way for McCarthy to indicate that in this new world, remnants of the old world — like electricity, running water, and humanity — no longer exist, or they exist in very limited amounts. The man has flashbacks about leaving his billfold behind earlier in the journey, after his wife left him and the boy. He shoots a flare through the window from which the arrow came and hits the man who shot him. They find a basement full of human prisoners who are being kept as livestock. Instant downloads of all 1391 LitChart PDFs The next day as they prepare to part ways, the boy gives Ely some food to take with him. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”, Easy-to-use guides to literature, poetry, literary terms, and more, Super-helpful explanations and citation info for over 30,000 important quotes, Unrestricted access to all 50,000+ pages of our website and mobile app. They come upon numerous burned bodies and melted roads that have reset in warped shapes. The stranger lunges for the boy but the man shoots the stranger in the forehead. The boy's dreams continue to be bad, and the man encourages him, saying that his bad dreams mean he hasn't given up. Later, the man and boy come upon their camp and discover the baby skewered over a fire. CliffsNotes study guides are written by real teachers and professors, so no matter what you're studying, CliffsNotes can ease your homework headaches and help you score high on exams. They come upon a waterfall and the man and boy swim together, the man teaching the boy how to float. The boy cries for the man, showing his kind heart and his compassionate nature in a world where very little humanity exists. Roads go ever ever on, Over rock and under tree, (…) Over grass and over stone, And under mountains in the moon. This is hard for the man to accept. The novel begins with the man and boy in the woods, the boy asleep, as the two of them are making their journey along the road. The man and boy move on, but the perceptive boy asks his father about the people they found in the basement. The man invites the boy to come along with them. The classic Robert Frost poem analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle ‘The Road Not Taken’ is one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems. Character List and Analysis. The boy tell the man that they're responsible for that other man, that they killed him, and it makes the boy question their role as the good guys. At forty-three, Micah Mortimer isn’t dissatisfied with his life: it may be predictable, but having an adequate place to live, just enough work, and the company of a woman friend suits him fine. One night he realizes he cannot get up again. After some time, the man tells the boy that the good guys keep trying, so they have to open the door and find out what's down there. His wife had killed herself, trying to escape what she felt was inevitable rape and murder. The man and boy accidentally encounter one of these strangers. The Road Overview. By the time they come upon a once grand house, the boy and man are starving. A man and his pre-teen son, who was born after the apocalypse, are currently on the road, their plan to walk to the coast and head south where the man hopes there will be a more hospitable environment in which to live. The man realizes that he'd been ready to die, but they would live. They are on the verge of starvation again when the man finds an apple orchard and a well. The woman tells the boy this is okay, because God's breath passes through all men. Their arrival at the coast is anti-climactic. Joe Fassler. The man says he won't let his son give up. Eventually, the boy decides to go, but not before he says goodbye to his father. The man sometimes has good dreams about the past and his wife. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world” (32). Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon, makes the case. The Road straddles the last two categories, although even Haneke had nothing to compare with the chilling horror of that gun-dilemma in The Road. Eventually, the man dies. He tells the boy to keep going south down the road, and to keep “carrying the fire.” He dies with the boy by his side. They are the good guys. The boy is terrified and begs his father not to open it. Effect: This is a technique, used by Cormac McCarthy that I have never seen before. The boys spends three days with the body of his father, then sets off alone, and immediately encounters a group of “good guys” – a man and woman with a little boy and girl. Horrified, the man and boy flee just as some “bad guys” return. The final passage of the novel is set up in story form, evoking thoughts not only of the man and boy's story, but also of humanity's story as a whole. There are people following them: three men and a pregnant woman. They hike up and down the shore, and when they return to their camp they see that all of their belongings have been stolen. They shoot the flarepistol off one night, feeling abandoned by the “good guys” and God. He recalls that he also left behind his only picture of his wife, and ponders whether he could have convinced her to stay alive with them. The man hopes for a future that might again also harbor courage, justice, and humanity.