Book changed my life. There's a real possibility only like 10 % of people ever do anything to each other but everyone else, the Man included, just steer clear of people, period. To comfort the boy, the man often says that they will be okay “because [they’re] carrying the fire,” acknowledging and reinforcing the karmic belief that if they uphold their morals and humanity during their journey, they will be able to survive because they deserve to. The book depicts an interesting dystopian scenario, you might want to check it … Village rescues concept of time. If anything, he's way more optimistic than anyone else would be in that situation. Maybe it’s just my personality type. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. He wakes up to his son talking to him. When he or the boy have nightmares they are just an extension of the present, where the worst has already happened, but in his good dreams the man returns to his happy memories of the past, and the world of nature and his wife. He was so scarred by past interactions that he trusted nothing and no one, not even safety and sanctuary when it was staring him right in the face. The dilemma comes at the point when only one bullet is left in the gun, meaning that the Man is left with the choice between allowing the Boy -- his son -- to be tortured, killed, and eaten (and not necessarily in that order), and shooting the Boy to prevent this (and thus falling victim to the same fate himself). It would have been hard to do without sacrificing some of the earlier bleakness, but it would have been necessary for the ending to feel right. That the so called good guys aren't that hard to find? BTW. It doesn't matter how long you put off death if you do it in those ways. I think there are a few times were a "big" word will make an appearance, but generally, you don't really need a thesaurus to read the book. Posted by u/[deleted] 5 years ago. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. As a final question: What would having the man and the boy suffer gruesome deaths serve to tell us? *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Those people the boy ended up with might not be "good guys" that are "carrying the fire" so to speak. There are a group of four people - three men and a pregnant women - who walk past them on the road. Warning: There are major spoilers for the film, The Road (and also the book, which is very similar), especially regarding the ending. It's worth noting that similar themes are pervasive in McCarthy's work. While I thought it was ambiguous, I choose to believe they were good guys. I thought the ending was hopeful: the boy found a family that was willing to help him. tl;dr: Time is meaningless without a stable community of people who can share it, think like what why calendars exist and whatnot. Close. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. I think there are a few times were a "big" word will make an appearance, but generally, you don't really need a thesaurus to read the book. The Man and the Boy are in a world populated by at least some barbarians and cannibals, and we are given the impression that there are a lot of them based on the Man's fear of other people. Press J to jump to the feed. I have to suspect that McCarthy didn't write the story he wanted to, either because he lacked the courage to face such themes himself, or simply lacked the courage to do so publicly. If you're looking for help with a personal book recommendation, consult our Weekly Recommendation Thread, Suggested Reading page, or ask in r/suggestmeabook. Love, "the fire", whatever you want to call it. They're actually very nice people who take the boy in and give him a home! Get free homework help on Cormac McCarthy's The Road: book summary, chapter summary and analysis, quotes, and character analysis courtesy of CliffsNotes. The Road: Film vs. Book Instructor: Ivy Roberts Show bio Ivy Roberts has PhD in Media, Art and Text and is an adjunct instructor in English, film/media studies and interdisciplinary studies. Maybe it just would have been too dark otherwise, even if that is what the book felt like it was building too. It's a pretty fast read. Its the same ending but the visuals of the movie convey more a sense of horror than I got in the book. They were able to take so much food that they were able to leave a can for a robber. Sure maybe it's darker, and could be construed as "more interesting" just to see what happens, but what actual meaning would it give? And while it could be that the world isn't as bleak as you seem, I highly encourage you to read the book. The worst of it, though, is that after the Man's death the boy simply walks up to a group of people (potential cannibals) and surprise! Now we get a lesson about the goodness of the human heart, and how the man should have trusted people more. The Boy isn't as jaded as the Man was, though they'd seen some pretty hardcore shite on their travels. There are a lot of people moralizing, and trying to make the ending be right, but I think your impression is just. They are described as ragged and downtrodden, and that was probably thier last hope. The original, unedited ending scene from the 2009 film, The Road. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.". Can you discuss it to me via PM? I think you're being too strict with the details of the story for what is essentially a parable. The boy, as the moral center of the story and as the only character that has never been in personal contact with the world before the cataclysm, personifies this structure of thinking about community as a necessary attribute in keeping his humanity. This story just keeps finding ways to be absolutely fucking brutal. This is fascinating stuff, especially I think for people who like McCarthy's other books. Wow, that ran pretty long! That ending was also interesting in its raw word choice. Thank you. Forgive early-twenty-something me if the language is a little pretentious. They smelled of moss in your hand. Maps and mazes. I don't really see that being at all consistent with the book. The movie takes place within the few years following an apocalyptic event. The subject of Cormac McCarthy’s new novel is as big as it gets: the end of the civilized world, the dying of life on the planet and the spectacle of it all. The man and the boy, who also remain unnamed throughout the entire novel, travel through the rough terrain of the southeastern United States.The conditions they face are unforgiving: rotted corpses, landscapes devastated by fire, abandoned towns and houses. I read McCarthy's The Road a few years ago, and I still think about it sometimes as an example of a certain type of book (i.e., one that tries to make vivid the stark and unpleasant realities of human existence; in other words, "dark") that makes a certain type of mistake. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone In either case, we are left with a cheap feel-good novel masquerading as apocalyptic horror -- but it sure sold. I understand where you're coming from about the ending. And it’s through that stable basis of community and civilization, time will again become relevant, and will begin anew. Perhaps you can help me understand? The mistake, as I see it, lies in the book's ending. His first book I read was No Country For Old Men, then it was The Road, and then Blood Meridian. Coming from a creative writer's perspective, my face and neck will tingle when I read certain parts of his books, no joke. The ending of the novel is surprisingly hopeful. :). Everything McCarthy shows us (e.g., a basement filled with human slaves, one of whom has had his legs cut off) seem to suggest that the Man is right in his judgment here, and that the Boy is insipidly sentimental to think approaching groups of people is a good idea. And yes, I do agree with the Man by the way; it's better to be safe than sorry. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the FanTheories community. When the Road Ends - The Tale of an Incredible Journey [Dylan Samarawickrama, Martina Zuercher] on Amazon.com. That seems to be a pretty consistent message. I never found any issue with the Man's viewpoint. Sorry, mate. The Road Interpretation of the ending The road written by Cormac Mccarthy; one of the most praised contemporary novels. We get to see how human beings act when there is absolutely no hope, almost no consolation, and nothing in the offing but pain, fear, and death. But while I was doing the dishes something else came to mind. I blew through The Name Of The Wind. Then, through the act of building and maintaining a stable community, history and time can be recreated and implemented again in the new world once it had basis in that community. Welcome to /r/FanTheories! The death of the Man was also the death of the narrator, and up until that point we'd only seen the world through his eyes; the story had been about him (and his boy, but from his angle), but when the narrator died, another one had to take his place. It's a pretty fast read. What matters is "the fire", human goodness, whatever. We don't know. I read McCarthy's The Road a few years ago, and I still think about it sometimes as an example of a certain type of book (i.e., one that tries to make vivid the stark and unpleasant realities of human existence; in other words, "dark") that makes a certain type of mistake.. Maps and mazes. Yeah, I think that he had been burned several times before that we were never privy to, and if it did break him, maybe only the broken people are going to make it. Once the man died, the boy, who was naturally more optimistic and hopeful, immediately found that the world was not as full of darkness or as completely evil as the Man believed it to be, and ultimately made it to be. You are right in that the story of The Road is told thru the eyes of the Man. I've never heard of anyone who shares that opinion of the work. Under such circumstances, people who survive are almost universally hard and cruel. The boy’s desire for community can be seen in his many attempts to help others and uphold what he feels is the necessary conduct for personal interaction. That's what everyone's thinking, I'm sure. He knows things will never be right again, he knows that he and his son will likely suffer horrible and painful deaths, but he hasn't given up on hope and faith. Both No Country for Old Men and The Road come late in his life, so the lessons of the father is a persistent theme. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. With the reader having to face the dilemma that the man faces in choosing to believe in wether people are good or bad. We don't explicitly know what happens to the boy. The Road describes the journey south taken by a young boy and his father after an unnamed catastrophe has struck the world. I searched around this subreddit and found the theory of the Boy meeting himself in a metaphorical wrap-up, and I really liked it. 25. In the blackness, the only the part of the road in front of the man is visible. I've read the book, and it's bleak. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. In the movie idk about the book they left the bunker because people showed up right? Another key paragraph -- significantly, one about storytelling -- occurs in darkness when they seem to have reached the end of the road, the lifeless ocean. The book ends with a description of the brook trout that once lived in the mountain streams. Archived. That kind of puts the whole idea of mankind surviving into the ground, and honestly it feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems like that would be a bigger bait and switch honestly, as it completely changes my perceived message of the book. Utterly, utterly bleak. It makes perfect sense: there's no food except what has been preserved from before the "apocalypse," which is not much. I think the Man's worldview is easily summed up by his reaction to the bunker they found: to get away from it because other people will want it, even though it hadn't been found up to that point. This story is meant to end horrifically -- and it would have been interesting! The Boy is much more trusting, and if people were like that, then sure, some might be killed and eaten, but some might establish small colonies or townships and thrive. To me, once I read the ending, I started thinking of the story as more of an allegory for the human mind, and it's tendency toward negativity. But I wonder whether anyone else shares my view about this book, namely that it is a cheap bait-and-switch that doesn't deliver on what it promises. This, from p. 220, may be the very heart of the book: He got up and walked out to the road. Therefore, as we should understand it, the purpose of the boy and the man’s journey is not only to survive, but to find civilization that can survive in the long term where time is able to hold meaning again (McCarthy 83). I hate to say that I hated this book, but I guess it went over my head or something. And by practicing the moral concepts and obligations of his humanity, the boy is able to find others whom he can trust in, and survive with in the long term. When I read the ending, however, I felt that McCarthy had completely cheated me of my investment in the story by replacing the horrific (but hopefully profound) ending that had been set up and was logically inevitable with a piece of cheerful, sunny cant. The woman accepts this as another way of talking to God. Just finished reading The Road. I interpreted the ending of the book and the movie differently. But not The Road. We use cookies on our websites for a number of purposes, including analytics and performance, functionality and advertising. I think you are making a huge assumption that the people who took the boy in are good and aren't going to kill or harm him. They in fact ran out before reaching the coast. When you think that everything is darkness and evil, everything that you see will be darkness and evil. The distinction between bad and good is deliberately vague. I had the exact same reaction and I'm curious to see what others think in response. It’s almost like I have a compulsive need to finish the story. Cormac McCarthy’s tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing yet deeply personal work.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. It's a theme that shows up in a lot of McCarthy's work, that the good people are controlled by the bad, but it's a fight worth having. I disagree with you that it ruined the book, or was a bait and switch, but the ending certainly changed the book that I thought I was reading into something else. Edit: I'll also add some clarification from another of my comments. If McCarthy had written the ending honestly, it might not have made Oprah's Book Club! The Road does not. Movies. I find that to be really interesting, honestly. For the book to end the way it did, McCarthy should have set it up a little better. Now, as the story goes on, we see more horrible things and begin to get the impression that a confrontation is inescapable: the two protagonists will not reach any safe haven, and will ultimately be caught by people who may very well be cannibals. The reason they are trying to get to the coast is because that's a good place to start a civilization. In the film, The Road, a father (played by Viggo Mortenson) guides a son (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) in a post-apocalyptic landscape practically devoid of life and humanity. “Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one … Regardless of the primary theme, it is possible for a story to convey multiple commentaries. I thrive on the tears of people who complain about books not ending the way they anticipated. Edit: Also I think the ending is not set in stone. Then bam, at the end, words like wimple and torsional. The Boy had the Fire, his childlike innocence, and he was lonely, and desperate, and he let someone come close, and it turned out fine. The one bright spot in the book before the ending was when the Man found a hole in the ground, full of goods but separate from the world. The ending is most definitely not definitive though, because throughout the entirety of the novel McCarthy stresses that no matter the situation or timing the father and his boy are never safe. Time matter again. Get free homework help on Cormac McCarthy's The Road: book summary, chapter summary and analysis, quotes, and character analysis courtesy of CliffsNotes. As none of my friends have read the road, I have nobody to talk to about it and I'm dying to get my thoughts out! Our footprint snuffed out nature, and we can't fix it, only live with it. I haven’t been this caught up in a book series since Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Trilogy. Just finished reading The Road. The present world of The Road is dark and full of death, and the only real color appears in the man’s dreams and memories. Pay close attention to the last paragraph: "Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. Absolute masterpiece. Exploring his other material gives you deeper insight into the way he channels his writing. The phrase also assigns greater meaning to their survival by giving them an ultimate goal; to find or to create a sustainable community where they can settle down with others, rebuild, and secure their survival and maybe even comfort in the long term. Throughout the book, the language the author uses, especially in the dialogue, is very simple. The Road By Cormac McCarthy This book is dedicated to JOHN FRANCIS MCCARTHY When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Time is basically meaningless in The Road, because there's no community. The ending is a bit of a cop out. The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. The boy goes out to the road and a woman embraces him. Metaphorically, when they carry this “fire” to the coast, they are carrying the building blocks of civilization; a civilization that could potentially be secure enough to create its own history and, therefore, a new structural concept of time, and time will again have meaning. He also plays the bad guy some of the time, taking the thiefs clothes from him so he would freeze to death. You are looking too closely at the trees and missing the forest. The Man knows he is going to die soon, and he tells his son to continue on south. Like it probably would've turned out a hundred times over, had they not been so careful. 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… Read more at … This was not put there accidentally. I enjoyed it as a depiction of the love of a father for his son, but I would not want to read it again anytime soon. They smelled of moss in your hand. There's a scene highly reminiscent of the baby scene in "The Road" (maybe served as inspiration?). In that end, McCartney is showing the boy taking charge of his own life and trusting people, however naive that is. We know people were driven to horrible acts (i.e., the caged humans), and we find it hard to imagine any group larger than the two protagonists surviving by scavenging; indeed, they barely survive. Through actions like these, we can see that the boy cannot only find community, but he has the ability to create community with others as well through the practice of cooperative actions. When the Road Ends - … The theme is about the lessons of growing old set against the backdrop of an apocalyptic end time. My god what a powerful book. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. When describing how things were, and how they can't be made right, the author reverts to a much more verbose and poetic description, to emphasize what was lost. They are later found to have eaten the child, but in what is clearly desperation. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road posits that at the end of the need for time, which was brought on by the ambiguous disaster, when history is removed as a basis or a structure for thinking about and dealing with the events of the world, humanity will draw on structures of thought that exist independently of history and time—like positions on morality and empathy—for the purpose of finding and creating a sustainable community of people with common values. This is a place for fans of various creative works to share theories, interpretations and speculation related to that particular creative work. It truly is one of the greatest works of fiction ever produced, so just reply whenever you've read it. Here, I think we have to separate "theme" from "commentary." I think you have a good point, but we do see signs of people who could be good natured at times in the novel. There isn't anything wrong with the Man's outlooks, just that he might've been wrong about people more often than he knows. No Country for Old Men springs to mind when it's realized the generation after you will do no better than you did. I've heard a lot of praise for it, and a lot of people call it depressing as is (though they like the nice uplift at the end), but I haven't heard anyone else whoa agrees with me. I really liked it think that everything is darkness and evil I around! Share it diet romanticises the apocalypse - makes it strangely appealing, despite everything 're too! Baby scene in `` the Road by Cormac McCarthy that this world is cruel and unforgiving eaten the,... To spoil anything for you throughout the book overall because it was so ended... 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