"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

Paper Summary:

The paper is a a critical essay about a Pulitzer prize-winning novel. In discussing "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy the paper focuses not on what the author may have intended to present, but rather on what the internal elements of the text reveal. The paper states that by writing this novel author McCarthy, is not protesting the nuclear stockpiles in Russia and the U.S. but he is allowing readers to share a story that is compelling, engaging, disturbing and yet brilliantly executed.

From the Paper:

"Indeed, this is clearly a book that touches on the unspeakable horrors that likely will follow a nuclear cataclysm, including humans turning into savages and criminals, and survivors rummaging through the rubble for the tools and food needed to keep going. And it is a story about the male mentality, the male quest for the will and the power to go on in a world where power has destroyed what was there before. "No sign of life...a corpse in a doorway dried to leather" (12). Saying the book is grim is an understatement. In terms of the humanity, this book is dark, darker, and black like a total eclipse. In the first twenty-five pages the word "gray" appears nineteen times. McCarthy is presenting to the reader the raw basic facts of a nuclear aftermath, and one need not try to read any more into than that, as far as the actual narrative. Life after a nuclear blast - in the best case scenario, experienced by the characters, is be bleak and not fun - and in the worse case scenario, at the end, life will be snuffed out."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hedges, Warren. (2005). New Criticism Explained. Southern Oregon University. RetrievedMarch 16, 2008, from
• http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/Explaind/ncritexp.htm. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage International, 2006.

More papers on "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy:

• Book Review # 103209 : "Character Survival in the Landscapes of Cormac McCarthy"
• Analytical Essay # 133873 : "Analysis of "The Road"
• Book Review # 104432 : "The Road"

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