Kaku 1

Ashley Kaku

McClure

Writing 39B

14 November 2018

Love and Beliefs Carry the Fire

Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, portrays a post-apocalyptic world in which a man

and his son survive the harsh environment and face the man’s ghosts of the past in their attempt

to head to the coast. The boy and the man must survive the challenges created by the monster of

the story. His novel hints toward the religious ideas of God using a person as a messenger of his

words and portrays the man’s beliefs of the boy being the word of God. The boy’s belief of the

man and himself being some of the good guys of the current society. It also portrays the love

and relationship between the boy and his father, which helps them continue their journey down

the road. This essay analyzes the rhetoric tools used to portray McCarthy’s message that the

beliefs people hold and the love shared between people is what keeps them from falling victim to

their corrupt thoughts and helps them continue to carry the fire of hope.

In order to look through the lens of the horror genre, we analyze that the man's past is a

monster of the novel from McCarthy's utilization of unusual description. This passage analyzes

the scene where the man comes to his old home and uses Noël Carroll's words as evidence to this

argument. Noёl Carroll, a leading figure in contemporary philosophy of art and distinguished

professor at the Graduate Center, CUNY, stated in his article published in The Journal of

Aesthetics and Art Criticism, “Categorical incompleteness is also a standard feature of the

monsters of horror: ghosts and zombies frequently come without eyes, arms, legs, or skin: or are

in some advanced state of disintegration” (55). In The Road by Cormac Mccarthy, the man sees
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"ghosts" of the past in his old home, "The boy watched him. Watched shapes claiming him he

could not see" (26). This use of the unusual description of seeing shapes that could not be seen

is accurate to Carroll's description of a ghost monster since the shapes lack eyes, arms, legs, and

skin. This encounter with the ghosts creates a sense of nostalgia within the man, which is

dangerous for the boy and man's journey.

Now that we have established the monster as the ghosts of the man’s past, we see that

they instill nostalgia into the man, which diverts the man and the boy from their goal of carrying

their fire of purity. McCarthy uses context and tone to portray this point to the audience. This

passage will use Bill Hardwig’s words to support my assertion. In The Road, the man and the

boy are looking through the man’s old home, which makes the man nostalgic from remembering

his memories of the past. When the man states, “This where I used to sleep. My cot was against

this wall” (McCarthy 26), it shows the man remembering the past and seeing ghosts. The

description of the man seeing the ghosts of the past gives off a nostalgic tone. It also gives off a

tone of hope, which is portrayed in the quote, “He pushed open the closet door half expecting to

find his childhood things” (McCarthy 26-27). The hope given off from the context is hope to see

the better and guaranteed safety of the past. Once the man sees that there is nothing of his past in

his old home, it gives off a depressed tone to the audience: “Raw cold daylight fell through from

the roof. Gray as his heart” (McCarthy 27). From the man’s expectations, it shows that the

ghosts have caused the man to lose sight of his fire, and when the expectations were not fulfilled,

this gives a depressed tone and shows the man’s determination waver. Bill Hardwig, associate

professor and director of undergraduate studies in the English Department at the University of

Tennessee, states in his work, “Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and ‘a world to come’”, “This

fascination expresses a lament for the destroyed past, but more specifically for the confidence in
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continuity and stability that the past held" (46). This statement implies that when a person

remembers a past which is no longer there, they remember not having to worry about the

problems they face now. This connects to the man's situation as he remembers the things that are

no longer there, which gives the man hope of a stable future, but is returned to the cold truth

when he realizes that the past can't be brought back. The depression that came as a result of the

man's false hope, which was caused by the ghost of the past, is dangerous for the man and the

boy. They need each other in order to survive, but if one of them wavers in their resolve to

continue to carry the fire, then both of them will perish. The thing that saves the man and the

boy from this dangerous situation is their beliefs and purity.

These beliefs that keep the man and boy focused on their goal of carrying the fire introduce an

aspect of purity that is used in the horror genre to signal to the reader who they should parallel

their emotions too. We analyze that the man's belief is that the son is a message from God and

establishes that he must protect his son from the bad guys, which is implied from McCarthy's use

of syntax and diction. In this passage, I use the words of Erik Wielenberg to support this

assertion. After their first encounter with a group of people from the post-apocalyptic world, the

man tells the boy, "You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may

happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill

anyone who touches you” (McCarthy 80). This shows the audience that the man sees anyone

who is a threat to the boy as a “bad guy”. The context also implies that the author has made the

man’s belief to be that protecting the boy is the mission given to the man by God. The man and

boy had just gotten away before being captured by the “bad guys” by shooting the person that

spotted them. The man and boy then have a conversation about the seriousness of that situation

and prepares the son for what may come ahead. When the man says the first pieces of dialogue,
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“You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again.”

(McCarthy 80), his last sentence is a bit odd to say to the boy. Usually, a father would reassure

their son that they won't encounter any more bad people, but he instead gives the boy the cold

truth. This shows the audience the man and the boy are in a situation where everyone is an

enemy and more encounters with bad people are inevitable. By doing this, the man is sticking to

his beliefs, since the only way to make sure the boy is safe is to tell the boy to be careful of the

people that they come across. The author then inserts this statement: “My job is to take care of

you. I was appointed to do that by God.”(80). In Erik Wielenberg’s (author and professor of

philosophy at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana) article, “God, Morality, and Meaning

in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"”, published in The Cormac McCarthy Journal, he states, “He

declares that his son is the word of God or God never spoke”(1). These two statement shows the

audience that the main thing keeping the man going is the need to protect his son, which is

strengthened since the man views the son's existence to be the words of God.

With the man’s beliefs established, we analyze from the author’s use of syntax and tone

that boy’s belief is that he and his father are some of the “good guys” in this post-apocalyptic

world, and from these beliefs we see that the horror genre is in play to give the audience another

character of purity to imitate in emotions. This passage analyzes the syntax and tone used in The

Road and incorporates the words of Michael Morrison and Tony Magistrale as evidence toward

my assertion. At the beginning of the novel, the man and boy come across a supermarket and a

detailed description of the man finding a Coca-Cola is inserted, "Coins everywhere in the ash.

He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it

closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca-Cola"

(McCarthy 22). This description tells the audience what the values are of the current society,
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where coins do not matter and a simple can of soda is seen as if it were a treasure. When the boy

questions what the soda is, it shows the difference in generations in this time period, "What is it,

Papa?" (McCarthy 22). This question shows the boy was born when the world had just collapsed

and did not have the opportunity to drink a soda before. The man then hands it to the boy,

watches the boy take a sip, and the boy then says, "It's really good'... ‘You have some, Papa."

(McCarthy 23). The boy's action to share the Coca-Cola with his father instead of keeping all of

it to himself emphasizes the boy's belief of the small things that are good in their current life

should be shared instead of being selfishly kept to one another to be good people. When the boy

tells his father, "You have some" (McCarthy 23), despite the father telling the boy that he wants

the boy to drink it, it tells that audience that the boy believes that in situations in which they are

fortunate enough to find something good, it is better to share these moments with his father,

rather than keeping them to himself. These beliefs show the characteristic of purity the boy has,

which gives the audience a character to pity, and Michael Morrison, a Professor of Physics and

English at the University of Oklahoma and coeditor of Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction,

and Tony Magistrale, Professor in English at the University of Vermont and poet, states in Intro

to Dark Night’s Dreaming, “That pity and fear inspire an audience and that in the stimulation of

these emotions the possibility for reintegration, or catharsis, is born” (3). This statement implies

that the boy is a character the audience can parallel their emotions and reactions to throughout

the story. This parallel of emotions and the boy is used to show the audience that the small

things that they have in life should not be taken for granted and should be shared to continue to

be a good person and protect their fire of hope. McCarthy then emphasizes this, by having the

monster put the characters through challenges.

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Now that we have stated the beliefs of the boy, which is that he sees himself and his

father as one of the “good guys”, we can now move onto how the choices the father makes

challenges his beliefs, which is analyzed from the author's use of syntax. I will be analyzing a

passage in The Road and using Noёl Carroll’s statement to support this argument. Noёl Carroll

stated in his article “our emotional responses as audience members are supposed to parallel

those of characters” (53), and in a novel, the only way for the audience to have something to

react to is if the character is facing an obstacle in the plot of the novel. For instance, the boy

begins to question his beliefs of whether he and his father are still good people: "There are still

good guys. You said so. Yes. So where are they?" (McCarthy 196). In this piece of dialogue, it

implies that the boy truly wants to believe his father's words, but begins to doubt whether his

father is telling him the truth. The boy then asks, "Is that true?" (McCarthy 196), and this

question shows that the boy is slowly beginning to distrust the father's words and whether there

are other good guys hiding somewhere. They then say to each other starting with the father,

"You don't believe me. I believe you. Okay. I always believe you. I don't think so. Yes. I do.

I have to." (McCarthy 196-197). This back and forth between the father and boy shows how the

boy's love for the father overpowers his doubt, and the statement when the boy says, "Yes. I do. I

have to." (McCarthy 197) is an odd statement to make after questioning the father's words, but

this sudden change shows how the boy has no choice but to listen to his father out of love, for

him to survive, and to continue to have hope for the future. From this love for his father and his

beliefs, he is able to shake off the doubts he has and continue to survive on the road. The man is

also tested in his beliefs to further show the audience of his purity and his love for his child.

Since we have established the that the man believes that his son is the word of God and

must be protected in the fourth paragraph and that a monster of this novel is the man's past from
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our second paragraph, we can move onto how the monster challenges the man's beliefs. These

challenges cause the man to waver in his decisions, but in the end chooses not to kill the boy

from his deep love for him, which is expressed through McCarthy's use of syntax and unusual

descriptions. The assertion is supported by using the words of Alan Noble. During this passage,

the man watches the boy sleep and questions himself of whether he can actually kill his own son.

From the dialogue, "Can you do it? When the time comes? Can you?" (McCarthy 28), the author

is using syntax to imply that the father has not made a definitive decision since he has the man

ask "Can I do it" It is also implied that the man is thinking of killing the boy when he is close to

death since he says "When the time comes?" (McCarthy 28). Assistant professor of English at

Oklahoma Baptist University with a PhD from Baylor University, Alan Noble, states in his

article, “The Absurdity of Hope in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"”, published in the South

Atlantic Review, “His divine calling creates an ethical dilemma for the father, since in the world

they inhabit, it appears that the kindest act a father can do for his child is to kill him or her before

the child suffers too great." (96) This shows that the man loves his son very much and does not

want his son to suffer alone. The current situation the characters are in show their suffering

through the author's use of unusual description, "They squatted in the road and ate cold rice and

cold beans that they'd cooked days ago. Already beginning to ferment. No place to make a fire

that would not be seen. They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold."

(McCarthy 29). The author chooses to describe the food as "already beginning to ferment",

which is an odd detail to add to the context of the story since he already implied the food was

old. This use of the rhetoric shows the audience the reasons as to why the man is considering to

kill his own son and take him out of this miserable lifestyle. The man and the son have no

guarantee of surviving for a long time, they are constantly starving, and can barely keep warm
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during the night. The author then inserts, "That the boy was all that stood between him and

death." (McCarthy 29). This syntax implies that the man's main reason for living is to protect the

son, or "the word of God" and if the boy is not alive, then the man would have already ended his

own life, but the man's love for the boy is what keeps him from killing the boy and himself. The

man goes through this challenge since their current lifestyle is very different from his past, where

there were reassuring signs of survival in a flourishing society. The ghosts of his past give the

man doubts of their survival on the road and push the man toward considering to kill his son and

reason for living to save him from suffering a hard life. These thoughts, however, are shaken off

when he is reminded of the love and his beliefs for the boy and gives him the strength to

continue to carry his fire of hope.

The love and beliefs the man and boy hold for each other is the driving force behind their

resolve to continue to carry the fire. Their love for each other was what kept them from falling

victim to the ghosts of the past and from succumbing to their darkness and turning into one of the

bad guys. Their beliefs are what inspired the man and the boy to continue walking on the road

despite the ghosts of the past continually haunting them. The fire the man and boy carry within

them is a symbol for hope and the ghosts of the past represent the darkness and depression which

turn people towards death and inhumanity. These factors all lead up to McCarthy's message,

which is that love and beliefs held by people protect them from the darkness of depression and

helps them continue to carry the fire of hope for the future.
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Work Cited

Carroll, Noël. “The Nature of Horror.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol.

46, no. 1, 1987, pp. 51–59. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/431308.

Hardwig, Bill. “Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and ‘a World to Come.’” Studies in American

Naturalism, vol. 8, no. 1, Summer 2013, pp. 38–51. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=89922682&site=ehost-

live&scope=site.

Magistrale, Tony, and Michael A Morrison. A Dark Night's Dreaming: Contemporary American

Horror Fiction. University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.

Noble, Alan. “The Absurdity of Hope in Cormac McCarthy's ‘The Road.’” South Atlantic

Review, vol. 76, no. 3, 2011, pp. 93–109. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/43739125.

Wielenberg, Erik J. “God, Morality, and Meaning in Cormac McCarthy's ‘The Road.’”

The Cormac McCarthy Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/42909407.