Will life get any better?

In the interview Oprah Winfrey made to the author of The Road, Cormac McCarthy, he explained how most of his life he had spent being a guy with very low income, not really caring much about money. And he always believed his life would get better, and it did, after becoming a successful writer. But he never considered himself a lucky person, due to the fact that he grew up in a just world.

The concept behind McCarthy's optimistic view of his life, is probably what got him started on writing The Road. But in this case the point of the story is really to tell what would happen if we were in a world were life would NOT get better. A world where our freedom, liberty, and peace would all be at stake of being lost. And in a lot of ways that is the concept of The Road. The father and the son are nothing but the mere representation of a fear that exists in our society of loosing nearly everything that makes us Human, from nature to our children, transcending into a world of darkness and killing all hope for a better future. And why does that fear exist? Well you can blame climate change for that.

Most recently, the National Geographic, made a post on Facebook asking people what Inspired them to take Care of the Planet. Ones they had entered about 2,000 responses, they decided to come up with an image, that portrayed the answers of the people. The ones that are bigger, are because they were the ones that most people answered. And nonetheless, the most repeated answers which were Nature, children, life, beauty, and animals, are all things that are lost somehow in the Road. And well obviously, with all these things lost, theirs no point for having hope in the novel, because this is what makes us human.

But is their hope now, in our modern world, that all these horrendous nightmares that the scientists warn us could occur in the future, can they be avoided? That will depend on how fast we can stop deforestation, change our energy grid from fossil fuels to renewables, and how much greenhouse gases we can suck out of the air. Of course with the current political will, this seems hopeless. But with the grassroots movement that has been going around in the last couple of years, and how it has intensified in these last couple if months with Moving Planet and with the protests in the White House demanding President Obama to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, that might put pressure on these issues, and utterly force the action the world leaders are tacking on the issue to radically transform.

The Last Coke of The Desert

I find myself trying to write a blog post of The Road, when I just end up finding out that my labrador dog, Manchester, died in the farm today. Just needed to get that out of my head. Anyway, The Road picks up with an interesting part here. The father goes to find an old coke vending machine, and manages to get out the Coca-Cola and give it to his son. ''The boy took the can. It's bubbly, he said. Go ahead. He looked at his father and then titled the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It's really good, he said.''

It's incredible how the boy looks at the can and talks about how ''it's bubbly'' as if it was something he had never seen or felt before. I guess that this boy is probably not the only one who has never tasted the refreshing taste of a coke, which most of us take for granted and can find it in the next door store any day of the year. But, here, in a world destroyed by a cataclysmic event, having this Coke is kind of a miracle, and its probably one of the most optimistic parts we'll ever see in the novel, sadly. And the moment is quite remarkable also, because here, it sort of relates to the famous quote ''the last Coke of the desert''. Only that this refers to a real coke not to some arrogant hot gal.

The Gatsby-Slaughter Essay

The symbolism found on the novels Coming Through Slaughter and The Great Gatsby can be quite set in completely different worlds. Coming Through Slaughter tells the story of a jazz player living in the nasty neighborhoods of New Orleans while The Great Gatsby tells the story of a wealthy businessman in Long Island.

Both main characters searched for pleasure which sent them into oblivion Gatsby went too far with Daisy,, ‘’If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high living too long with a single dream.’’ (pg.161)Gatsby’s quote really infers to how he (Gatsby) had stayed too much wanting to have Daisy and in his perseverance for his love and passion with Daisy, he sent himself towards a dangerous path, one in which, leading to a horrible death in his backyard pool. His death was the price he had top pay for a romantic affair with Daisy.

As with Buddy Bolden who appears to have trouble and the others try to see where the song ends, to tell what he chose to end with. “Something tells me to listen and see who wins. If Bolden stop son the hymn, the Good Lord Wins. If he stops on the Blues, the Devil wins.’’ This quote relates more to the idea of Buddy Bolden’s choice told from a metaphoric point of view; that depending on how the song ended, Godor (the Devil) would win. Since it depends all on Buddy’s choice, which was to be an alcoholic and sex addict, so we asume that he chose to make the Devil win. Obviously his madness only left him to live a complicated life in a mental institute.

So, in conclusion, the stories symbolisms talk about how the characters chose an ‘’Evil’’ path, one guided by greed and pleasure, which made them turn away from their morals and bring an end to their lives.

Is Their any Hope?

The book, even if God is mentioned, sees a world where their is no Hope. Sadly that is what The Road portrays, as if the only hope was to die and see each other in heaven:

''What would you do if I died?

If you died I would want to die too.

So you could be with me?

Yes. So I could be with you.

Okay.'' (PG. 11)

Here the only hope that lays to the future of these two, the father and the son, is heaven. sadly, their lives don't see any other alternative, and probably none of us would. I mean, living in a world where you are living in a horrible winter, with little to cover you, and also with the fear of cannibals coming to hunt and eat you, and with little to eat, I could see that they are actually being as realistic as they can be. But I guess that we need hope in order to continue to live, or else then their is no point in living, if their is nothing to look forward into the future.

Part of the idea that The Road tries to buy also is that even though their is no hope for the novel, their is hope for us. Their is hope that we can be able to tackle the some of the problems that threaten mankind and our civilization, such as climate change and be able to act before it becomes too late.

The Presence of God

So, we pick up the story of The Road in a post-apocalyptic world, somewhere in the burned United States. And just as the story begins, we already see a very interesting paradox :

''If he is not the word of God God never spoke.'' (pg. 5)

The boy here realizes that if his father is not what God said and taught, then God had never spoken his teachings ever before in history. We see here how the father is a man that resembles what Christians call the ''presence of God'', according to what the son tells us.

''The presence of God'', is what ALL Christians are supposed to be. Or else, then their is no point in going to Church, celebrating Christmas, or praying at night. This obviously makes sense, in any religion. If the members of the institution don't practice what they believe, then it has no meaning to their lives. And the boy probably doesn't know of a better example of his father. Maybe his father is a great example, well have to find out.

In times of despair and troubles, it is probably the moments when God is mostly with us, and this is seen in The Road. Their love is what keeps them together, in a situation as rough as this one.

Good vs. Evil

The epic fight between good and evil has always existed, even in the jazz world as Ondaatje says.

''It sounded like a battle between the Good Lord and the Devil. Something tells me to listen and see who wins. If Bolden stops on the hymn, the Good Lord wins. If he stops on the blues, the Devil wins. '' (pg. 81)

The fight has occured in every culture and generation of human civilization. From Zeus to Hades, the Jedi and Sith, the USSR and USA, the fight even happens in jazz. However wins the fight will define the outcome of all mankind, wether we will fail or succed. In Buddys case, he failed as well as Gatsby. We still need to wait for the Road.