The Road essay

Set in an almost lifeless post-apocalyptic world, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy follows a father and son’s struggle for survival through chaotic situations while walking towards south on “the road” with very limited resources, where they encounter numerous difficulties, including having to deal with cannibals who patrol the road; food shortages which cause them to have to go on for days without eating; and inclement weather conditions. The author uses the obstacles the father and son face on the road as a metaphor for the different hardships humans encounter in life, in order to demonstrate that adversity allows humans to explore humanity and human values, thus discovering their true self.
With insufficient food resources, some survivors are being referred to as the “bad guys” since their values have degraded to a point where they are relying on primary instincts to survive. They have chosen to abandon morals and become cannibals due to the tough situations. On one night, a noise wakes the father up. He sees a truck driving down the road, with some people who are dressed in combat attire and they possess gunfire. He interacts with one of them, and asks what they are eating. The person replies with “Whatever we can find” (Cormac McCarthy, P. 64), referring to the other humans, as then person later tries to lure the father and the son into joining them, when in fact he just wants them as food, and he even threatens the son with a knife. Later on in the novel, they go on for five days without food before approaching a house. Naturally, they go inside the house to look for food, only to find nothing edible, and a locked door that leads to the basement. The boy does not want to go in, however the father believes that there is food and that they should give it a try. He then breaks the lock with a spade he finds, and the little boy follows him down the stairs to the dark basement. “Huddled against the black wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide,