The Road - Character Development
Throughout the father/son’s journey, the boy would
experience many disturbing events that would prove to be a considerably
horrendous scar to the mind. This would include the event where the boy views
the baby blackening on the spit:
"What is it?
Oh Papa," he said.
“What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless
and gutted and blackening on the spit” (McCarthy 198).
After seeing such taboo, is it possible that the boy will
one day resort to cannibalism throughout his upcoming life because of all this
experience? Explain why or why not.
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ReplyDeleteIn the novel, there are "bad guys" who eat other people to survive. In my opinion, I don't think the boy will resort to cannibalism because throughout the novel he always needs reassurance that he is the good guy. "Are we still the good guys? he said. Yes. We're still the good guys. And we always will be. Yes. We always will be. Okay." (McCarthy 65). Cannibalism will change the fact that he is one of the good guys. The boy is very driven to help others even when he's struggling to survive himself. "We cant stay here. We have to go. He's scared, Papa. I don’t think you should touch him. Maybe we could give him something to eat." (McCarthy 137). The boy knows his moral rights and knows that he needs to remain one of the good guys.
ReplyDeleteI would like to agree with Silver on this question. "No matter what. No. No matter what. Because we're the good guys. Yes" (McCarthy 129). Throughout the novel the man teaches the boy many things. He tells him what is right and what is wrong. One of which is eating another person. "On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous" (McCarthy 110). I think the events in the novel do scar him, as Anthony says, and he will not ever resort to cannibalism because of his need to always be the "good guy."
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the both of you on this topic. The boy would not resort to cannibalism because of how he has survived thus far with his father: "They'd had no food and little sleep in in five days and in this condition..." (McCarthy 105). The father son reached a point of desperation, but did not attempt to eat another individual. The boy asked his father: "We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we? No. Of course not. Even if we were starving? We're starving now" (McCarthy 128). The father taught his son life lessons that will be imprinted forever. The boy listened to his father, and knew for a fact that eating another human being is inhumanely wrong. Also, once the boy meets the new man in the end of the story he asks him: “And you didnt eat them. No. You dont eat people. No. We dont eat people. And I can go with you? Yes. You can. Okay then. Okay” (McCarthy 284). The boy did not want to associate himself with people who would eat other people, and has found others that have the same morals. With this, I do not think the boy could ever turn to cannibalism as you both have said, because he has lived righteously and has stayed true to his values all the way to the end of the story.
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