The Road by Cormac McCarthy

As the man saw his child slowly disappear over the hill with his new care takers he began to fall asleep awaiting his death. The book, The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy is a story about a man and a boy’s journey across the American waste land. Throughout the story the man and the child faced multiple problems and issues. However, it seemed like they always found a way to deal with whatever problem faced them and kept trying to reach their goal. Rumor had it that on the west coast of the United States of America there was a human survival area after the entire world was destroyed by a massive fire. Knowing that, the man and the boy set out on their journey trying to reach the west coast in an attempt to find other people. The entire world is covered in inches of ash and food is scarce considering there is no animal or plant life left on the planet. About half way through the book the two main characters have a lot of ups and downs. For example, the man and the boy find a bunker loaded with food meant to last for months. Shortly after they left the bunker while they were bathing, someone stole their entire cart full of food and supplies leaving them with nothing. Luckily the man was able to track down the thief and take their belongings back or else they both would have died. As the story continues the two main characters make it into a small town where they could tell people had recently been around the area. As they were walking down the main street of the town the man is shot by a bow and arrow. The man and the boy managed to make it out of the town successfully but shortly after that the man drops and can’t continue on. As this was occurring, another surving family came along and helped the man and took care of the boy for the rest of the story. The theme of this book, from what I believe, is no matter how hard things get, never stop trying. The man and the boy faced several hardships along their attempted journey and they never gave up hope on making it to the west coast. Time and time again they ran into problems but every time they managed to find a solution to their problems. That is why I think this is the theme of this book.

Billy P.