The+Quest+2

The Quest

 __The Questor__: "An hour later, they were on the road. He pushed the cart, and both he and the boy carried knapsacks. In the knapsacks were essential things in case they had to abandon the cart and make a run for it." p. 5-6.



__The Place To Go__: "He sorted through the sections and looked again. Finally, he showed the boy. They were some fifty miles west of where he'd thought. He drew stick figures on the map. This is us, he said, when the boy traced the route to the sea with his finger." p. 182



__The Reason To Go There__: "He said that everything depended on reaching the coast..." p. 29



__Trials And Tribulations En Route__: "An army in tennis shoes, tramping. Carrying three-foot lengths of pipe with leather wrappings. Lanyards at the wrist. Some of the pipes were threaded through with lengths of chain fitted at their ends with every manner of bludgeon." p. 91



"We've got to find something to eat. We have no choice." p. 106



"What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit." p. 198



__The REAL Reason__: "He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart. But he knew that if he were a good father still it might well be as she had said. That the boy was all that stood between him and death." p. 29



__Analysis__: Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a quest undertaken by a man and a boy in a post-apocalyptic world. Officially, the road will take them South towards the coast, but the man's real reason for going isn't to reach the sea, but simply to keep the boy safe. The man, who is the questor in this model, and his son, encounter many obstacles en route, such as cannibalism, starvation, and angry mobs. The man feels that to keep both himself and the boy alive, he must avoid contact with other humans who could wish to eat them or steal from them. This is a quest that follows the model quite well, until the end, when it may or may not lead to self-knowledge.

__Discussion Questions__: 1. In what ways do you believe this story conforms to and diverges from the model of the quest? Does it lead them to self-knowledge? 2. Which of the trials and tribulations faced en route do you believe is the most difficult?