Book Reports / Critique for "THE ROAD," Cormac McCarthy's novel. Tell us about a book. [4]

Hey Guys, I really need someone to critique my essay and it is due dec 1. Can someone please help me out. Ill critique your essay if you'd like as well. Thanks

Tell us about a book, artwork, or lab experiment that changed the way you see the world. What is it about the work that affected you? How did your world become different?

It is 508 words long. Is that ok??

In today's milieu, we live under an established government with enforced laws and punishments to keep society in order. Our society is considered to be pretty easy with readily available food, water, and other basic necessities. These privileges keep a majority of humanity from committing heinous crimes like murder, and risk their comfortable lifestyles. However, what were to happen if social pressures and government control were taken away? Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road defines a post-apocalyptic world. It is the aftermath of the collapse of laws and social order, survival essentials become limited, and the world is thrown into total chaos.

The story revolves around a man and his son, names never mentioned, struggling to survive in a barren wasteland being cautious of nothing else but other humans. Illiterate men rule the roads, carrying guns and supplies, while their slaves in chains follow behind. They even have a certain group of pregnant women who will bear them their meals. Despite these circumstances, the father tries to keep his and his sons humanistic qualities. The father knows that there is a chance of being found and taken away for any atrocious reasons that their captors have. And in case of it, the father tells his six year old son to take his gun, place it under his chin and shoot up.

This novel opened up a new window of thought. I found it hard just to imagine the will power of the father to expect his son to kill himself, and the son's compliance with the order. What struck me even more was their strong will to survive in a world where hope seems impossible. I could not stop thinking and trying to make sense of the decisions made by their generation of people. Is it really possible to push the human to the point where animalistic distinctiveness like savage killings and filial cannibalism becomes a norm? Are we animals in disguise, if so what is human?

Human behavior is incredibly strange to me, and characters in The Road had me thinking about the human psyche. I wonder what exactly controls our behavior, mob mentality, and nurture vs. nature, all these things crucial to understanding others but most importantly myself. The novel helped me realize the importance of social interactions and building strong relationships, which is why I'm interested in psychology and human behavior. But the most important lesson the novel presents in a discrete way, is the importance of education and how it keeps humans on the right track.

If we were to analyze events such as riots and peaceful protests, what separates these people from one another and how do they differ in their mentalities? A scene from The Road that I often think back to was when the son asked the father "are we the good guys?" when comparing themselves to other humans that resort to slavery, violence, and cannibalism. I wonder mostly of my own reactions, if the situation arises would I raise my fist and fight back or will I stand by in silence.