Assignment #2 Topic One- The Road

The author of the novel The Road, Cormac McCarthy places a father and a son in a journey in which they must choose between giving up and accepting death or the desire to continue to live. The topic crosses both of their minds often. At one point the boy was contemplating death and asked his father “What would you do if I die?”The father replied to him “If you died I would want to die too.” The conversation reveals the boy's and the father’s inner thoughts about the situation they are in. It seems to them that the sufferings that they have to endure don’t seem to be worth living for.  They’d rather give up, lie down and not have to deal with the burden of suffering they call life.  But although the boy and his father constantly contemplate death, they continue to walk. This shows that deep down despite their thoughts they are fighting to survive.  Seeing his father dying of sickness, it gave the boy determination to fulfill a desire to live. He realized that he had come too far on the journey to give up.  Life is full of never ending challenges, but once a one self realizes that they overcame all of their suffering, it makes it easier to know that they can continue to live because after all they have already made it through other hardships.