The Road Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel

The Road is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Cormac McCarthy. Its a post-apocalyptic fiction that relates the journey of a father and son. The novel describes their long journey spanning several months over a landscape, where much of civilization and life was destroyed. It was in his imagination, through which he had once traveled and described his future views about that place.

The Road describes the journey of a father and son across a post-apocalyptic landscape. There they come across to a landscape where a great misfortune had destroyed civilizations and life. Bands of cannibals, and refugees, who hunt for canned food or other surviving things, were the only traces of humanity left in that place. The novel then tells about the atmosphere as covered with ash and the protagonists can only breathe through improvised masks that filter the air. Plants, animals and even the oceans are almost lifeless.

The father, in the novel, The Road, realizes that they cannot survive another season under such harsh conditions. He then aims to reach Southeastern United States. All along their way, threats to their survival create an atmosphere of fright and tension. The plot proceeds on to say that the father is very sick and tries to protect his son from the constant attacks of starvation. His desire was to help other wanderers whom they meet. In order to prevent themselves from the captivity of Cannibals, they carry a pistol with 2 bullets, so that they can commit suicide if the need arises.

The entire story of the novel, The Road, shows that the boy and the father are interdependent. Despite all hardships they stick with each other and fight all obstacles that come their way. However, the ending is quite sad. After facing such extreme conditions, they finally manage to reach the south but do not find the salvation which the father had hoped for. Finally, the father dies, leaving his son alone. The boy meets another man who had been tracking them throughout their journey, after 3 days of his fathers death and he adopts the boy.

The Road describes the journey of the man and his son through some unnamed places. It was assumed that their journey began in the region of Eastern Tennessee and continued southeast across the Great Smoky Mountains. The only geographic reference made is the barn bearing the painted legend See Rock City. It has been critically acclaimed and received positive reviews and honors. It was described as heartbreaking, haunting, and emotionally shattering by some critics.

The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction along with being the finalist in the 2006 National Book Club CircleAward for fiction. Even Oprah Winfreys Book Club included the novel. John Hillcart is set to direct a movie based on the plot of this novel. Wikipedia