The+Moral+Wasteland+2010+Fourth+Period

﻿ The Moral Wasteland from Cormac McCarthy's //The Road//

//by Hannah Magill and Traci Cramer//



"I'd take [the boy] with me if it weren't for you... It's the right thing to do" (56).

"You mean you wish you were dead... You mustn't say that... It's a bad thing to say" (55).

"[The cart thief] bent and scooped up the rags in his arms and piled them on top of the shoes. He stood there holding himself. 'Don't do this, man.' 'You didn't mind doing it to us'" (257).



"'Maybe we could write a letter to the good guys. So if they came along they'd know we were here'... 'What if the bad guys saw it?'" (245).

"'[The cart thief] was just hungry, Papa. He's going to die.' 'He's going to die anyway'" (259).

"When we're out of food you'll have more time to think about it" (174).



"And nothing bad is going to happen to us... because we're carrying the fire" (83).

"If you break little promises you'll break the big ones" (34).

"No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone" (248).



"'How old are you?' 'I'm ninety.'... 'Is that what you tell people...so they don't hurt you?' 'Yes.' 'Does that work?' 'No'" (167).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"I couldn't trust you with [the name]. To do something with it. I don't was anyone talking about me" (171).

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<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"He could just see the top pf the truck moving along the road. Men standing in the stakebed, some of them holding rifles" (61).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"Huddled against the back wall were naked people, all trying to hide, sheilding their faces with their hands" (110).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"What the little boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit" (198).

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<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"Where men can't live gods fare no better" (172).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"There is no G-d and we are His prophets" (172).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">"'What do I have to do?' 'Tell us where the world went'" (166).

<span style="background-color: #808080; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 130%;">Animoto

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">The quotes chosen are divided into five categories. The first category, at the top, is the one about destruction and death. Death and destruction are normal, everyday parts of life on the road, yet they are still surprising to the characters. The second category revolves around the little boy. These quotes describe what the man will go through for his son, showing the last of morality. The boy himself is a foil to the Moral Wasteland. He knows how to do no wrong to anyone, even to the bad guys. The third category is the old man, Ely. The old man provides that morals no longer exist. In most cultures, elders are venerated, having more life experience. When people hurt Ely, and when he can't give his real name, it proves the destruction of a moral society. The fourth category is that of prisoners. These are the people in the house and the army on the road. They might be prisoners for real, or they might be prisoners of their convictions- convictions to stay alive at any cost. The soldier that the man shot, he is not even free in death, since is comrades eat him. Morals never condone the bondage of any man, so the prisoners represent another decaying factor of morality. The fifth category is religion. Most religions in the world are based around the difference between right and wrong. By tying religion and the lack thereof into the novel, McCarthy can easier show the decay of morals along the road. By having characters which still consider religion, there shows the possibility that the wastlenad is not entirely an immoral one.

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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">1) In the novel, why is the baby killed but the old man is not? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">2) Name three ways how the moral wasteland in //The Road// is similar to that of current society. Do //__not__// include any reasoning from the last question. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">3) To what extent are the man and the boy moral characters? Who has more morals? Why? <span style="color: #e70808; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">***images from Google Images***