This passage is The Road written by Cormac Mcarthy. The text, as well as the entire novel, is about survival and getting a new license. It begins with a father and son living on the street. They are poor, and they only have a cart of supplies. Each has a backpack in case the cart is left behind. Since they don’t think they can survive another winter, they decide to move south to a warmer climate. While the boy and father are traveling along the coast road, they must scavenge materials and food to help them survive. Only a single bullet, their food and supplies keep them alive.
McCarthy purposefully uses the boy and father in this paragraph to demonstrate what it feels like to be poor. McCarthy illustrates this by having both the boy and father survive with the minimum amount of material every day. McCarthy wanted to make the reader understand that the poor are themselves poor. The author stresses that everyone is not supreme or powerful. Some people fight to survive on a daily basis. The boy and man are the ultimate representations of values in the society.
McCarthy uses words to emphasize the main point of this passage. You don’t think you are going die? (McCarthy 85). This passage shows the author’s intention to convey that because they are poor and haven’t eaten for a couple of days they were unsure if they will die. The novel is dominated by the idea of poverty and survival. Since the boy and man are not taken seriously in society and the government ignores them, their life is unpredictable. The novel’s theme of survival and relicense is related to each other, as shown by the use of two major points in a single argument.
The repetition is evident in the book. It’s important because it allows the reader to further analyze the passage. For example, the boy asked “Why do we think we are dying? This has to do with the struggle to survive. For example, in “We Don’t Have Anything to Eat” (McCarthy 86). We’ll Find Something” (McCarthy 1985). This shows they don’t give up even when they feel they might die. The poor are shown to be similar to those in the book, where they all try to survive. Mccarthy (85) emphasizes repetition in the sentence “I don’t know”. This is a reference to the human condition where they don’t even know if their day will end because of the limited resources available to them. They are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that the next morning, they can still get up.
