McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 114
The piece I have written is what I could have believed to be a cut out from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" before all final edits were official.
Papa, I’d rather lose my life saving a friend than take it by take it because of the bad guys. We’re experiencing some hard times but we can’t curse that which brings life.
Listen to me. I love you and I know what’s best for you. These people will dismember and dispatch our flesh. We will die. If not now one day.
But I must fulfill my purpose.
Your purpose is to stay alive.
I want to know who God is.
If you are not the word of God God never spoke, and word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
Papa I don’t understand
You’ll understand after I leave.
Quivering in fear, the boy took a glance at the pistol that determined whether or not his life would end. Checking his surroundings the boy saw a dark figure running across the field. The figure reminded the boy of himself, small, desperate, scared, and lost. Then, he recalled the other little boy that he saw looking back at him from across the street.
There’s the little boy. He’s over there. Can we save him?
No those people are guzzling moral machines.
It doesn't matter we have to save him. He doesn't know those bad guy are out there.
I’m sorry. We can’t save him.
Just then the people caught up with the other little boy and captured him. The boy turned to his papa sobbing.
Rationale: This explains why I made certain choices for my creative piece.
Doing this project allowed me to become McCarthy for a little while. I had the chance to analyze a short part of the book and add a piece that feels like it may have been missing from the novel. In the book there are references to christian philosophies. During class discussions we acknowledge them but sometimes didn’t dig deeper into what they meant. For this project I decided to play on the connection we’ve made between the character traits of the boy and Jesus. My goal was to connect the boy and Jesus without making it feel like the reader was reading the bible and to mimic McCarthy’s style of writing while still being unique and add my own flair to the piece.
In the beginning the man says “If he is not the word of God God never spoke”. This quote is similar to John 1:1 and John 1:14 in the bible “... the Word was with God, and the Word was God... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”. After analyzing I found that the man was saying that the word, God, and the boy are interchangeable. When the bible says “the word became flesh” it’s talking about how God sent himself to the earth as flesh through Jesus. Here is a clear connection to how the book portrays the boy as Jesus.
Having made this connection I wanted to find a way to incorporate this into the placement, where I was going to insert inside the creative piece. I began skimming through my book and reread the story on page 110. During this part of the man and the boy were looking for food and came across a room where they found naked people who were captured by cannibals. The man and the boy fled and hid. The man insisted on them committing suicide if too close to being captured and tells the boy to “curse God and die”. This phrase is also in the bible in the book of Job. When Job becomes sick and loses his wealth his wife tells him to “curse God and die”. The boy being faced with similar issues as Job continues to persevere until things get better.
Last, I incorporated the other little boy into the creative writing to show how compassionate the boy is like Jesus. In christianity Jesus died to save everyone from death. Throughout the book the little boy is always asking his papa if they could help someone although he puts his own life at risk.
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