AP Exam Practice Essay #4

Given that The Road by Cormac Mccarthy takes place in a barren wasteland, it is remarkable how richly developed the characters are.  However, this is at the heart of the novel's theme, as McCarthy explores what it takes to cling to humanity in an inhumane world.  With so few characters to work with, he needs to make them count.  He does this by making the two only main characters -- the nameless man and his son -- foils that play off each other and in the process enhance their development.

The man is the first half of the tragically heroic duo and serves as the primary protagonist.  He is driven by the singular desire to keep his son safe, and it is this drive that both advances the plot and reveals the theme.  Through the grisly struggles the man and the boy encounter, McCarthy poignantly shows that goodness and love persists in even the most bleak circumstances.  The differences between how the two handle their situation is instrumental in showing this theme.  The man is a representation of the wasteland's savagery.  He is pragmatic and realistic to the point of cynicism.  Throughout the novel, it is shown that he has no qualms with getting his hands dirty if that's what it takes to keep his son safe.  Indeed much of his behavior (killing and not helping strangers for example) would seem quite villainous outside the context of saving his child.  This is why using the boy to contrast the man is of such importance to understanding the theme.

Beginning even at the physical age difference, the boy already has an inherently inferred innocence when compared to the man.  Despite not being the central character, he is vital to understanding the man's character and through that the theme.  Where the man is the unflinching ferocity of a post-apocalyptic world, the boy is the last vestiges of humanity.  Not only does the boy give the man something "good" to fight for, his interaction with his father places emphasis on the theme.  The boy wants to help the fellow survivors they encounter, but the man refuses.  Even this relatively simple interaction is packed with thematic significance.  On one side, the reader is shown that kindness still exists after the world's end, if only in an extremely naive form.  On the other, McCarthy breaks down the basic instinct of paternal protection into a desperate act of survival.  The interaction between these two contrasting sides is at the heart of what McCarthy intends to communicate.

Often times the most contrasting characters in a work are by default the protagonist and the antagonist.  The Road both refutes and supports this.  It can be argued that the man, as a personification of a savage world, counts as an antagonist.  At the same time, his heart-warming relationship with his son is not the behavior of a typical antagonist.  The duality of this relationship serves to show all sides of McCarthy's story of humanity while also fleshing out characters in a way impossible independently.