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Maxwell Fishman
Prof. Barnhart
English 113B
30 September 2015

The Lonely Road

What defines truly being alone? Is it having nothing left to live for, or having nothing
left to lose? Being isolated from the world can turn men into total savages with them not being
looked after by humanity or make them simply wish to end it all so they can live in peace instead
of being shunned by society. In this scenario we see specific members of a dystopian world. We
get an in depth look of what it truly means to be left alone in a world out to rid whatever is left of
human society.
Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road has a clear understanding of what a broken
society

contains. It is not a simple lets all band together and rebuild from the ground up

mentality, it is survival of the fittest where the strong will survive and the weak in some cases
would become the prey of the strong. People will clearly segregate themselves from those who
deemed to be more of a nuisance then an asset causing a sort of barrier to other survivors. The
Man and the Boy are the best examples of this mindset as the Man understands how this rotten
world works.
The general idea of the world in The Road is that the whole of society has fallen apart
with no sense of the human world being left among the remnants of survivors. People young and
old have a darker side, a more curious side to things deemed inhuman that they would never say
not even to their closest family and friends. Once the idea that the world is no longer watching
and judging them their inner demons burst out and takes hold.
As time progresses these people meet with others with the same interests and begin
forming groups among themselves and begin wreaking havoc on those stupid enough to accept
their offers of shelter. The Man knows this better than anyone, pulling a gun out on a man trying
to get the Boy to try and join their party. He understands that there are no free rides in an

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apocalypse and there will always be a catch. It does create a negative sense of trust with the boy
as every encounter the two have encountered usually starts and ends with a form of threat. This
gives the idea to the boy that they are alone in this world and or going as far as to say they truly
are isolated from whats left from humanity.
Does the life of one person make up the whole universe of an individual; to some people
they say yes but deep down there is always that one tiny voice in the back of their minds telling
you that there

was a better time before this. The Man seems to have these dreams showing a

better world in his mind back when he had so much more than he does now a happy father
preparing for a child to be brought

into his life, but are these truly dreams? The novel clearly

portrays the idea that the Man has all these visions of a time prior to the apocalypse, however the
sequence from dream to reality shifts with little to no warning almost as if, the were simply
visions.
The Man like clockwork, has these "dreams" of what life was like prior to the death of
human society and strange other forms of realities. He tries to reject his dreams so that he could
try and stay in reality with whatever time he had left with his son but it heavily emphasizes that
the Man truly wishes his old life would return, but at the same time he wants to stay in this real
form of hell so that he can spend what little time he has left with his son.
This can be seen as the Man being torn apart between two separate worlds, one with his
loving wife and family in a world where human society still exists, then the other one where
everyone is out to kill their fellow man and where the chances of survival are slim to none. The
most important factor as to why he even wants to try and survive in this war for survival is
simply because of his son which in a certain way is a bond between both realties where in the
previous one it is all the Man has left from his loving wife and in this world they live in now
where it is simply so he will have something to live for.
Research I have conducted showed during the bombing of Britain throughout World War
II, soldiers who have lost entire families seem to experience the exact same visions. Their
families are still there watching over them, even after further examinations of the soldiers it was
deemed that some acquired a sense of PTSD and also schizophrenia. The combination of these
two illnesses together is an absolute nightmare to the mind. Bringing a constant reminder that

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they are the sole remainder of their family to going as far as making them relive the experience
that caused such a travesty utterly destroys the mind and makes them empty husks.
The Man is far from becoming a hollow but one could suppose him having schizophrenia
with these visions of his previous life. The constant mental stress the Man has to go through from
protecting the Boy from harm's way to making sure that they both have enough food and water to
make it through another day could also be another reason for these types of episodes to help him
make it through the day. A world against them what else can a man do then remember the times
where he didn't have to palm a weapon as he sleeps. When you look deeper into the book the
isolation they are currently experiencing could also be considered pure alienation.
There are also the thoughts of complete alienation from the rest of the world as whoever
they meet has these alternative motives for them among a couple of people. The only named
character that was not a complete monster towards the Man and the Boy is named Ely although it
was not his actual name according to him. Even still he did not show much kindness to them
even though the Boy gave supplies to the old man who still shows little to know kindness only
being a harsh sort of anti-prophet saying riddles and exclaiming that death would soon abandon
the world once humanity is gone. It actually makes it seem that the whole world is against them,
or at the very least has no care for what happens to them.
This sort of experience can be seen in less intense scenarios such as during the times of
Japans recovery from World War II. The world did not see Japan as an honorable ally due to its
great betrayal of China and joining the Axis forces. This specific time was called "Calendar of
Japanese Treaties, 1951-1970." They struggled to try and regain broken ties with the world but
everyone was on edge and very cautious with doing any business with Japan, they were
completely segregated from the world this includes any Japanese people that were in the U.S.
and other countries in the world.
The biggest difference between this and the novel however is that this did not make Japan
unwary and detestable towards the world but instead gave them a form of determination that
made them want to try and make amends for their previous mistakes. At the end of the day both
Japan and the Child had the same goal but for different reasons.

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I understand that the societies in these two scenarios are completely different as
obviously one is not a doomed civilization and one is however the idea of both trying to fix
what's broken is the same. The Boy holds a strong sense of diplomacy and kindness like Japan
and is basically treated the same way Japan was being treated by the rest of the world. Trying his
best to express his love and caring personality and offering gifts
Being alone shows others that it may be easy to pick you off which causes distrust among
all survivors for the Man preferring to be distant and even violent to strangers while the boy trys
a more diplomatic and friendly approach to see if they can better their odds, but the Man knows
this song and dance all too well one false move and they are food for their friends. The boy is
too young to fully understand what kind of situation they are in and some would believe that the
actions the Boy makes could get him and the Man killed fairly easily. Try as he might to
maintain composure during such interactions the Man would not hesitate to kill to keep the boy
is safe. This is another piece of the fear of isolation for the Man. He deems the Boy to be the sole
purpose of his existence, which brings out an indirect sense of isolation for the Boy. Since the
Man isolates the Boy, not letting anyone near him, unless they want to get shot in the head.
The factors set into this novel, one would believe the Man would become as cruel and
unforgiving as the world they live in, and on the contrary he has become a caring and protective
father. The father has already experienced a better life and knows what he has lost, while the Boy
was brought into a world where the best greeting one could imagine is a gun pointed at you he
started and to this day has nothing to gain from the world they live in. This shares a very
interesting form of connection through isolation as the Boy has never experienced any of the joys
the Man has which is why he gets so interested with for instance when they were scavenging and
found a Coca Cola he was intrigued and curious while the father simply saw it as a Coke can.
This truly speaks volumes of the separate worlds that the Man and the Boy lived in as the
Boy never got to experience really anything in life aside from witnessing the collapse of Human
society. As previously stated the Boy is an embodiment of two separate worlds in a sense, but
knows nothing about the previous one, aside from stories his father tells him and through
walking among the now deserted cities. All one can really do in this situation is imagine what it
was like; thankfully the buildings themselves aren't truly damaged, but simply abandoned and
covered in the ashes of the old world.

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The echoes of an old and dead society with the grey hollow ash-covered world is what
the Boy must now experience instead of a fun and peaceful world the Man lives which also gives
another form of isolation to where they really don't have much to talk about as anything the Man
would say is simply foreign to the Boy and he will never experience the same things that the
Man experienced during his time on earth.
The amount of stress this put on the Man both physically and mentally begins to cause his
health to decline, until his unfortunate death in the end. Through the end of the novel all the Boy
experiences is hardships, betrayal, the horrors of a now forgotten humanity one would think that
the Boy would become anti-social and violent, but yet we see the Boy instantly join a whole new
group of survivors even though all the ones he had met had previously tried to kill them. Why,
that is a large question that comes to mind, why would you side with possible savages with all
that you have been through with your father?
The biggest fear was the fear of losing all you had left and truly being alone. The Boy in
a mere instant lost his Father and began a whole new journey with a group of strangers much to
the surprise of anyone who has read the book. One would think that the last thing the Boy would
do is simply accept

the fact that this group of people are happy go lucky survivors who never

resort to cannibalism. Sure the survivor says they have never done it but in this world is trust
really that simple to gain?
The whole thing seems strange but the Boy is not simply doing it because he wants to
make his father worry even in the afterlife, he is doing it because his fathers dying message
explained to the boy that a fire was shining inside him making him a sort of beacon for humanity.
With this knowledge he chooses to go with this group to have his very own experiences with
the remnants of the world that remain and spread his hope among others who consider this life
not worth living.
This would make you say that he wants to break the illusion of being alone in this world
and being isolated in society, granted most people as of right now are hollow, selfish, and
bloodthirsty monsters but the Man and the Boy aren't the only ones that want to survive in this
world without losing their humanity. Another big thing I believe as to why he simply left is so he

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could be connected to other humans aside from his father. The Boy loved his father to the very
end and wishes to spread the knowledge he was given about surviving in such harsh conditions
and try to stray people from becoming cannibals through the scavenging techniques he was
taught.
The fear of being alone is always in the back of our heads; no one wants to lose
everything they have and to basically be stranded on earth with no one to talk too. The Man in
particular understands this more than anything, the Boy has a grasp of what the Man had before
the apocalypse but that's all he really knows. No one could really imagine how the Man was
feeling throughout the novel, a man who was doomed with visions from the past to a far better
time now. Experiences of different realities like monsters and visions of his wife minutes before
the destruction of society can show that these thoughts are literally killing him mentally.
One would say that Cormac McCarthy truly did his research on the matters of the
apocalyptic world showing plain as day that once you lose something you can never truly get it
back. All that I have learned from the harsh experiences in the novel, to what I had researched
involving war victims who share symptoms nearly perfect to the "dreams" the Man experienced
within the novel. That is the most interesting part of this novel to me as it shows a far deeper
form of torture on the people who dare to live in the world they live in. They show that it is not
only a physical journey, but it is also a test of one's mental strength and the courage to continue
to find hope.

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Works Cited
"Related Product." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2015
"How Policies Change : The Japanese Government and the Aging Society." How Policies Change : The
Japanese Government and the Aging Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
"Through Japanese Eyes. Volume I: The Past: The Road From Isolation." by Richard H. Minear, Leon E.
Clark; Through Japanese Eyes. Volume 2: The Present: Coping with Affluence.
.