After a slow start, I have become captivated by The Road. Though I didn’t like McCarthy’s writing style at first, it has grown on me, and I think it is especially powerful given the simple but heartbreaking conversations the father and son have, and is also effective in conveying the bleak landscape and the frightening encounters the two experience.

As a post-apocalyptic tale beginning years after the apocalypse itself, I found it frustrating not knowing what exactly this apocalypse was, what exactly happened to decimate the food supply and the human race. I was also frustrated with myself for being frustrated. What significance does the actual apocalyptic event have on the novel? What is important is the world that remains, and the environment in which the two main characters are trying to survive.

It is the inherit hope in this survival that saved the novel for me. Indeed, I must give McCarthy further kudos here in the crafting of his narrative – the discovery of the bunker filled with food came at the perfect time. I, the reader, was ready to give up and say “Why bother?” with the novel, just as the father was ready to give up his life (I would have, of course, continued for the sake of this class, but I always prefer my reading to be simultaneously personally motivated). Though what the father and son are doing can hardly be called “living,” it is the hope that one day, if they survive long enough, they may be able to craft some sort of “life” that continues to motivate their survival.

It was hard then, for me, to try to understand the thought process that drove the cannibals – clearly they believe their actions are necessary to their survival, but what is motivating them? Have they been reduced by their conditions to a state in which survival is both the means and the ends? If this is the case, does this make them the “bad” guys and the father and son the “good guys”? Our examination of dualistic thinking would clearly suggest that it is not that simple, and as far as mortality judgments go, that may be the case. However, I have yet to see the logic (even logic that does not fit my own definition) justifying survival for survival’s sake.

After a slow start, I have become captivated by The Road. Though I didn’t like McCarthy’s writing style at first, it has grown on me, and I think it is especially powerful given the simple but heartbreaking conversations the father and son have, and is also effective in conveying the bleak landscape and the frightening encounters the two experience.

As a post-apocalyptic tale beginning years after the apocalypse itself, I found it frustrating not knowing what exactly this apocalypse was, what exactly happened to decimate the food supply and the human race. I was also frustrated with myself for being frustrated. What significance does the actual apocalyptic event have on the novel? What is important is the world that remains, and the environment in which the two main characters are trying to survive.

It is the inherit hope in this survival that saved the novel for me. Indeed, I must give McCarthy further kudos here in the crafting of his narrative – the discovery of the bunker filled with food came at the perfect time. I, the reader, was ready to give up and say “Why bother?” with the novel, just as the father was ready to give up his life (I would have, of course, continued for the sake of this class, but I always prefer my reading to be simultaneously personally motivated). Though what the father and son are doing can hardly be called “living,” it is the hope that one day, if they survive long enough, they may be able to craft some sort of “life” that continues to motivate their survival.

It was hard then, for me, to try to understand the thought process that drove the cannibals – clearly they believe their actions are necessary to their survival, but what is motivating them? Have they been reduced by their conditions to a state in which survival is both the means and the ends? If this is the case, does this make them the “bad” guys and the father and son the “good guys”? Our examination of dualistic thinking would clearly suggest that it is not that simple, and as far as mortality judgments go, that may be the case. However, I have yet to see the logic (even logic that does not fit my own definition) justifying survival for survival’s sake.