The Road

    The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a father and son who walk alone through burned  America in a post apocalyptic world. McCarthy’s writing style makes the readers feel as if they should be appreciative with the lives we have. As Americans, most of us take our life for granted. We come to home to a nice warm bed and a house with a stocked kitchen that could feed a ton of people. While people read this story, we should realize that everyone is not as fortunate as us, for example, the father and his son.
    Food and shelter is a big problem for these characters. The boy has to depend on his father to find food throughout their journey so they can survive. “In an old bat board smokehouse they found a ham gambreled up in a high corner. It looked like something fetched from a tomb, so dried and drawn,” but that was their only option (9). If any of us saw food like that, we would automatically throw it away without thinking. There is no shelter for them either, “He pulled the blue plastic tarp off of him and folded it and carried it out to the grocery cart and packed it and it came back with their plates and some cornmeal cakes in a plastic bag and a plastic bottle of syrup” (3). Nowadays whenever we see someone with a grocery cart and a tarp who’s not at a store, we classify them as homeless. Usually there is just one person with it, but in this case there are two. They are making their way down South, partly because it is warmer there, so then they will not have to be cold with their low supply of blankets.
    Right from the beginning of this story, I felt as if more people should do something to help the homeless population. In the story, the little boy wanted to help the burnt man and his father did not because they did not have anything to give him. It shows how unselfish and naive this little boy is even though he was barely surviving. It shows how many people today are selfish or scared to give homeless or injured people money or just simple help. This whole story allows us to reflect on our lives and realize how blessed we are with everything here for us.