The Role Of Hope In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Is Their Hope In The Road? In Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, a father and his son try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where the majority of people have turned to cannibalism and the environment is twisted and dark. Despite their being glimpses of hope and the Son being showed as the next Messiah, a message of hope could in no way be conveyed in the book. The book is depressing, sad, and makes readers feel grateful for what they have and that they do not have to go through what the protagonists face everyday day.
First, the book addresses the loss of religion and the hopelessness stemming from it. In the opening pages of The Road, the Father says “Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered. Oh God” (11-12). The Father is basically cursing God for what he allowed to happen to the world and how he and his son have to endure it. Is this God’s way of the exterminating man like he did in the Flood where he flooded the Earth and killed all the sinners? Maybe the Son and Father represent Noah being
The book conveys too much despair, gloom, death, and fall of man that readers will wonder why they wanted to read such a depressing and sad book. Cormac McCarthy might be trying say that if his story becomes a reality and the world becomes a desolate wasteland, there is not turning back or do-over. If Cormac McCarthy showed that there is hope in his book, readers probably would not have taken the book as seriously or maybe think that if there is hope in this story then if it happens to the readers then they would think oh we will be okay, there is hope. People cannot have the delusional idea that in every bad situation hope will be given to them but they need to realize that they shape the future and that they need to prevent these atrocities from