The Road Blog Post (Tucker Diveley)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a dystopian thriller about a boy and his dad trying to get to the south where it is warm to escape the upcoming winter. Many themes are portrayed throughout the book, such as violence, good vs. evil, survival. These are just a few of the many that are expressed throughout the book. These themes affected my feeling for the book a great deal but in a good way. It made the book so much more intriguing and suspenseful, for example when the pair is walking through the city and the cannibals are around you can really see the love the dad has for the kid. The man's dreams play a large role throughout the novel; the man tells both himself and the boy that good dreams are to be feared because they indicate a form of acceptance, and that death would inevitably be near. Bad dreams, on the other hand, are reassuring because they demonstrate that the man and boy are still persevering in the world they inhabit. This aspect of the book drew me in and made the struggle for survival so much more real to me. The book starts off with the boy and father in the woods heading south with nothing but a grocery cart, some supplies, a gun, and hope. It is set in America in a post-apocalyptic waste land. The boy and his dad are trying to reach the south where it is warmer. It is clear they are the only ones the other has in their life and the survival of one means the survival of the other, so if one where to die it would mean death for the other. They come upon towns and cities that are mere shells of what they once were. 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. They endure much together from cannibals to starvation to finding a great shelter and thinking they will make it through. The man and boy where the only two main characters and the reader should immediately be captivated toward these two as the last good people in this world. Throughout the book the child is portrayed as a holy figure with a kind heart and compassion. While the people they encounter are the complete opposite. Cannibals who trap naked people in their basement to eat later or people who would eat their own children, pure evil. The writing style is unique. It does not have any quotations for the dialogue to represent the world they live in how it has devolved so much and is devoid of purpose. The boy and his  dad's name are never stated to make it clear this could happen to anyone.  It was written in 2006 but it was inspired when Comac went to Mexico with his son and it was his envision of what the city would look like 50- 100 year from that date and how the poverty would grow and become more of  fight for survival. It definitely a book worth reading but if you have a weak stomach i would not recommend the book due to its gruesome nature.