Elaine Qian

Mrs. Bailin
English 11 H
9/10/13
1

The Road

The theme of the foremost scene in Carmac McCarthys, The Road is about survival
and humanity. Scraping through and fighting for food in a world that already been destroyed to
ashes. The end was the most astonishing in this post-apocalypse story. When they tracked down
the thief, to when the thief was begging for mercy, and the boy was trying to plead to his dad to
forgive the thief. This scene showed a lot of mixed emotion and was very quick paste from
anxious to anger to pity.
In this scene and this book, there was never words that were more simplistic then in this
book. Especially when the little boy was talking because McCarthy probably fancied that the boy
would not know much vocabulary. The author assumed education would not be as significant
during this time anymore. For instance when they found out that someone had taken all their
belongings he was only able to say what happened papa?(p.253). There are many more cases
like this throughout the book where he only utters one to two terms and using very limited
vocabulary. The author also uses very descriptive words that help the reader picture the scene,
called naturalism. As the author depicts the boy and his father hunting down the trail that the
thief left he described it as half teaspoon of beach sand tilted from somewhere in the under
structure of the grocery cart (p.254), when he could have just said there was a trail of sand on
the ground.
As they finally caught the thief they used additional expressive words to describe the
thief the author illustrated him as scrawny, sullen, bearded, and filthy(p.255). When the boy
and his father got their stuff and as well as the thiefs clothes they left the thief clothless. Like a

Elaine Qian
Mrs. Bailin
English 11 H
9/10/13
2

shivering slatlike creature that was barefoot from head to toe(p.258). When the thief was still
trying to plead for forgiveness and to spare him he repeated the word man several times. The
assumption is that the author was most likely trying to portray the thief's nationality without just
plainly stating it.
The boys father had always made sure that the boy did not lose his humanity like most of
the human race. The boy still had kindness and mercy in his heart he felt wrong about what his
father was going to do. When his dad made the thief strip all his belongings he pleads his father
to conclude his doing. Of course, his fathers emotions at that time overwhelmed him at that
moment made him go demented and did not listen to the boy and took all the goods the thief had.
After they had left the thief, the father got won over by the boy to return the thief's clothing.
Sadly, it was too late the thief had already disappeared and long gone. As they arrived back at
their camp the boy said the most bewildering thing when his dad told him that he was not trying
to kill the guy the boy said, but we did kill him(p.260).
The scene to the very last word was marvelous, the thief standing there begging for
mercy to the way the boy said they had killed the thief made people feel dreadful for the thief. It
portrays what individuals will do to others under the circumstances; killing, betraying and
stealing to survive. Carmac McCarthy portrayed them with such ease and fine points that it
brought the readers into the story. If humans were to be forced what horrified and berserk things
we would do and how thin of a line is between humanity and insanity.