Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road" is about a man and his son who

struggle to survive in the empty shell of the United States of America. After a

apocalyptic event that left the land covered in ash .With almost no food and

barely any water made  death  very possible . Death is so prominent that eating

,drinking or people having a exchange of a few kind words is extraordinary. The

major theme of the novel is death.

        

             The man and the boy  struggle to survive. The landscape is covered in ash

and soot . Most living things were killed . Civilization has been completely

destroyed by the big mysterious event . For example, cows are extinct, and the

boy has never ever seen birds or fish. "On the hillsides old crops dead and

flattened. The barren ridgeline trees raw and black in the rain"( McCarthy 18).This

shows that everything dies and will die

 

          Eventually  the reader become aware that the man is dying. "In the night he

woke in the cold dark coughing and he coughed till his chest was raw.... He knelt

there wheezing softly, his hands on his knees. I am going to die, he said. Tell me

how I am to do that"( McCarthy 148) . His death is approaching , his worsening

cough and the increasing amounts of blood he spits out, are evidence of

that.Which adds on to the theme of death or mortality.

 

       

             The color of the scenery and landscape thoroughly represents death. The

overall tone is black and grey . The ash ,the water, the rain , the burnt trees. Bleak

landscape  in general gives and ambiance of death and depression. The

interesting thing about this book is that death is expected and even accepted by

the characters. When the man shot a bandit that was trying to get the boy. He

didn't  give a second thought about shooting him. He just accepted the bandits

death and didn't think twice about it.