Ariel CanoyMr. DavisHonors English February 10-225, 2014Love and SacrificeCormac McCarthy's novel The Road is set in the future after a global catastrophe and tells the story of an unnamed boy and father who both travel along a highway that extends to the East Coast. This post-apocalyptic novel shows terrifying events such as cannibalism, starvation and inability to survive, depicting the powerful act of the man protecting his son from all events in which depicts Cormac McCarthy's powerful theme of a person sacrificing or doing everything humanly possible. for the one they love, which generates the power of love. McCarthy portrays the man as someone who sacrifices and does everything humanly possible for the one he loves, which is the boy. The type of love visible in this novel is not found in usual novels. Instead of simply depicting a father-son relationship, it also presents a representative of self-sacrifice and companionship. Although both father and son care about each other's survival, in the first quarter of the novel the term euthanasia suddenly comes into consideration. The father had considered killing his own son, because he said the truth was that the boy was keeping him alive: “They slept huddled together in the blankets, in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he was a good father, it might just be like she said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death” (8). McCarthy creates through diction the importance of the boy to the man, as the man feels like the boy is the only reason he is alive. . In this novel, McCarthy presents through imagery...... middle of paper ......d the father represents a loving relationship in a loveless world, as the only other relationships presented to us in the novel are those of deep exploitation, since the strong use (and eat) the weak. In other words, man's thirst for survival is fueled by love for his son. Even though the man anticipates his own death, he continues to ignore it and lives to seek life for the boy. McCarthy portrays the father as not wanting to kill the boy preemptively to save him from a society of destruction, rape, murder and cannibalism, unlike the mother who thinks it is better to take the easy way out . For the father, suicide is only an option for the son if he faces imminent harm. McCarthy offers the theme of a person sacrificing or doing everything humanly possible for the one they love by depicting an idea of ​​love even in a world of nothing..