The Road
What do you think the author is trying to say about humanity when he wrote the last paragraph in the book? Do you think the author intended you to see it as a bad thing or good? Which words prove your point?
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." ( McCarthy 241).
"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." ( McCarthy 241).
McCarthy is giving a vision of humanity that shows the emotions that can exist in the worst of settings. The Post- apocalyptic vision that McCarthy presents is one where humanity has been ripped apart. Survival is all that matters to everyone. In this book, where human emotions are not acknowledged at all, the author shows the love between both the father and the boy. In the new world that they’re trying to survive in, humanity is pretty much destroyed. The father is the only one that has a memory of the real world before it was taken away, and the boy has no knowledge of the previous world what so ever. So, in the last paragraph, He is talking about the post-apocalyptic world here. ONCE there were fish in the mountains where the father and son crossed to get to the sea. But they aren’t there anymore. The things that were there will never be put back again. In the deep glens where the fish lived, all of the things were older than man. But man, which were the last to arrive on earth are the ones who leave their footprint when they leave the earth. When people do something bad to the environment and the world around them, they can’t undo it or fix it, what’s done is done. So, the last paragraph of the book is referring to the world as it once was, before people were living on the land and before they changed it.
ReplyDelete[no grade] I agree with the above comment, but I think that the last paragraph could be taken in another way as well. In my opinion, the man and the boy represent the last sliver of humanity that is left in an otherwise ravaged and inhumane word. McCarthy's last paragraph could be referring to what used to exist before the apocalypse. On the other hand, it could be taken as an emblem of hope for the future, since the common objective of the boy and the man was getting to the south for a better life throughout the entirety of the novel.
ReplyDelete(No Grade) I think the author determined that humanity is strongly influenced by characteristics by other people and by relationships. Just like how the father and son's relationship will determine how the son behaves because the father died.
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