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Junqing Chen
Professor Eric Barnhart
English 113B
10 October 2015
The humanity and love
The book named The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a man and a boy, they try to
find the new hope in that dark world, in my opinion, the main argument of this book, which is
the love and humanity, and there is something between these two very important things for
everyone, I think that sometimes different situation could make people change the feeling of
the love to someone, in this book, we could see that the man protect this boy only for love, so
in my point of view, the love is the key to deal with anything in this world, even transform
humanity.
Before I read this book, I have never thought something about humanity, because this
word is so strange to me, however, after read this book, I changed my mind, and the reason is
I think this topic is interesting. As a human in this world, maybe we have never considered
something about ourselves, maybe we have never seen what the love is and what the
humanity is. Look back this book, the man kill people, steal food, do everything that he can
to protect this boy, and make sure the boy is safe. This is the responsibility of a father, but I
do not think that the man would like to kill people or do that kind of bad things. In my point
of view I think there are two reason which make the man to do some bad thing which you
would never do it in a normal world, first, in the author depicts that world, if you want to
alive, then, you have to do that, second, the man could leave this boy as what his wife do, we
can see in this book sometimes the boy is a kind of burden of the man, when he innocently do
something, the man would try to stop him, and the man have to explain the reason to him.
Because he need the boy know that why he cannot do that. The man need teach everything to

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this boy, this is the power of the love. In conclusion, even if you know you will make the life
hard just because someone, but you will still to stay together with him, and overcome these
difficult which is not supposed to exist in your own life.
Social pace speed increases, more and more people have a variety of pressure and pain,
they think it is social pressure and pain caused. Love has become a social necessity, it
becomes a lubricating economy. So they attempt to go through some of the ways to solve this
problem, this method is actually a means to achieve their own ends and use. In my point of
view, the humanity make us to find the method, and sometimes people try to do something
that they even do not know what they are doing about. I believe that there must have some
contact between the love and humanity, because there are lot of example in our life, for
example, nowadays, there are a lot of criminals, they break the law, and do what they want to
do, meanwhile, some of them has the purpose, I have read a news, which is about a man steal
the money from others, and he just want to make his children has better life, you may ask that
why he do not find a job and spare no effort to do it, to change his life? The reason is that he
has been cheated by his best friend, after that, all he had before is gone, the house, the car,
everything. However, he have to support his family, and the love make him went the wrong
way, think of this, if you are a father, and you had to support your whole family, you do not
want your family suffer because of you, what will you do? This is what the humanity,
everyone has different experience of the life, so sometimes there could be something blind
their eyes, and make them make mistake.
According to an essay form Mikael Stenmark Issues about human nature are at the core
of philosophy. But it is not just a philosophical or an academic affair but all humans have
opinions and sometimes fairly strong opinions about who we are. People assume naturally
that they can come to know human nature through the behavior of other humans they meet.
Behind what other humans do they recognize character traits that often do not surprise them,

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and they form expectations as to what characterizes human beings in contrast to say dogs,
horses and cars. Theories of human nature (or at least fragments of theories) can be found
everywhere and at every layer of society (Stenmark). This essay talk about the human
nature, and as the author of the essay said, humanity is a core of philosophy, and philosophy
is talk about the nature of the world, so we can obtain that the humanity is born with your
body, because you are a human, the essay also illustrate that no matter animals or human
there are different theories of them. However, sometimes you could do something only for
meet other people, as the father in The Road, we could just say the father do anything only
for he loves this boy.
We can also imagine that if you love your parents or you love your wife, what will you
do for them? Will you do anything to them for make them happy or make the life better? If
we really love someone, I believe that we could do those thing for them, maybe a things that
you do not like or you have never thought you will do it. Sometimes, people live in the world
for a lot of things, you cannot just for yourself, which is selfish, for example, in my country,
if you fall in love with a girl that you have loved her for a long time, but, when you ask the
views of you parents, they do not agree, what should you do? There are two choice, one is
you continue falling in love with this girl, and do not listen to your parents, maybe because
this is your own thing. Another choice is that you have listen to your parents, because you
know that if your parents do not agree you and this girl, then, the life between yours will not
be happy. But, you have to make a choice, because you live in this society, there will not be
everything could follow your mind, actually those two kind of choice, which means that
which love you will choose, the love of a girl or the love between your parents. Most of time,
love could change your mind, and make you do some unexpected things.
If we want to make a contact between two things, which is easy, because we can always
find some relationship in different things. From the word, love and humanity, seems there is

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some relationship in them, because, the love is in humanity, and humanity includes all of your
feelings. Another essay from Alan Noble is talking about the hope in this book, the father
wants to look for a place without violence and give the boy a new environment to live, on the
other hand, both of the father and the boy believe there is the love exist in the result of the
world, although they have experienced so much violence and inhuman things (Noble). Love
comes in many different shapes and sizes depending on the environment in which it
manifests, the family love in this book also has a clear contrast, which is the mother and the
father.
On the contrary, there are a lot of examples around us, there is a report, which is about
some children abandoned by their parents, parents work abroad and left their children, then
this kind of behavior lead the kids generates dysfunctions both in the behavioral and
emotional area. From Nicolae Mitrofans essay we can seeMore researches have showed
that the parents' leaving for work has negative effects on childrens marks (Mitrofan), if
parents cannot give their kids the care, then as the essay, there will appear some negative
effects in children mind, and there is a sentence which is we can say that in the appearance
of the deflective behavior, for children temporary abandoned by parents, the amount in which
the chance of deflective/delinquent behavior is to be present, is given by the abandonment
period, the oppositional behavior, the outsourcing, the total of competences and also the total
of problems (Mitrofan), we could obtain form this report that without the care of parents
children could do some illegal things in their future, because when they were a kid, they lack
parental care, this report also mentioned that they may have discontent mentality to social,
only because other family is complete. So the family love is so important to a children, in
The Road the mother gives up to her family, but the father still do not want the boy hate her
because of this, so love as we see, love totally can affect a persons life and mind.

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If we only discuss humanity and the love as the book to background, I think that is a little
narrow, because the whole things is after a major disaster, according to an essay from Cooper
Lydia, his article mentioned, under normal circumstances, after a disaster, then most of
people will show the human nature because of some small things, and he still explain the
reason, which is the order in our life has been destroyed by disaster, people will be like
lacking spirit of cooperation, they do not know what should they do can make the situation
better, but everything except love, people knows who should be cared about and who should
be protected by themselves. However, what would it like in our normal life? In fact, we do
not need to worry about this problem, because if only love can solve this kind of problem,
then regardless of your efforts, you still will not obtain the results that you want.
If the humanity cannot make us know that what love is, then I believe there will be a lot
of thing lose the meaning, for example, someday, your best friend steal your most important
thing, and then will you still believe that he is your best friend? Someday, you find that your
wife of husband betrayed you, and you can still remember the oath between, will you think
that your wife dose not love you anymore? What I want to express about these two examples,
which is the different love can mean the humanity of each person. I try to show the humanity
and love, and the love could transform the humanity. In my view, I do not think that the
humanity will not change any more from you were born, and I believe the love is the only
thing can change it.
To the summarize of this argument, love and humanity are similar, so sometimes
something could contact them, and on the other hand, these two magical things is the key to
control our mind and make us to do everything. Furthermore, love and humanity will affect
each other, and this is the main argument in this essay, form the research, we knows that what
kind of form the humanity and love should be. No matter what kind of love and humanity,
life still will continue, and time will not wait for anyone even one second, all that you can do

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probably just make the life better or worse, but may inadvertently, love will change things in
your life, and that will be so quiet, even after you know what is the change, but you would
not know when it start from.

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Work cited
Stenmark, Mikael. "Theories of Human Nature: Key Issues." Philosophy Compass, 7.8
(2012): 543-558.
Noble, Alan. "The Absurdity of Hope in Cormac McCarthy's the Road." South
Atlantic Review, 76.3 (2011): 93
Mitrofan, Nicolae, and Doinita Bentu. "Prediction Models for Maladjustment Behavior with
Temporary Abandoned Children." Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 33 (2012):
348-352.
Cooper, Lydia. "Cormac McCarthy's The Road as apocalyptic grail narrative." Studies in the
Novel 43.2 (2011): 218+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 26 Sept. 2015.