1. Discussion Questions for
The Road
By Cormac McCarthy
General Questions
1. How did so many people survive the apocalypse?
2. Was it a nuclear blast?
3. Were there any animals in the novel? How many?
4. If there are no flowers or yellow taxis, candy or balloons, will memories keep these colors, tastes,
smells and sights alive?
5. What was the best and worst thing that happened to the father and the son?
6. What was the father's favorite saying?
7. What was their last resort going to be?
Ethics Questions
1. Does God still matter in a fallen world?
2. Do good and evil still battle in a world without rules?
3. Do the characters showtheir moral characters? How?
4. How does the son showhis trust and faith in God in such a violent world?
5. Can hope stay alive in the hearts of man in the face of utter darkness and violence?
6. Can purity be as strong as evil?
Cannibalism Questions
1. The world has ended as we know it. If there are no fish or birds or plants to eat, how long can
humans exist?
2. Could they come up with a new way to live without resorting to cannibalism?
3. Is cannibalism to be expected?
4. Is cannibalism acceptable in disasters? What real-life cannibalistic events have occurred in the
past?
5. At what point does man lose his soul?
6. Does life ever lose its value?
Style Questions
1. Why did the author decide to write a novel without giving characters a name? What could it
represent? Consider: new world/new rules, dead world/dead rules, to represent everyman, to
represent the need for the characters to go underground/undercover.
2. 2. Why do you think the authorleft out quotation marks and apostrophes in his dialogue? Consider
how the writing matched the bare bones of their existence.
A Brief Look at Cormac McCarthy's Use of Imagery in The Road
Students should keep a notebookwhile reading this book to keep a list of new vocabulary words, imagery
they like, and answers to the questions for discussion.New words should be listed with their meanings, a
synonymand a sentence using each word.
When reading the following lines, ask students to determine whether similes, metaphors, or hyperboles
were used.
1. "Scrolls of fallen wallpaper lying in the floor like ancient documents."
2. "...crude tattoos etched in some homebrewed woad faded in the beggared sunlight."
3. "...they stood looking where the last of that ragged hoarde seemed to hang like an afterimage in
the disturbed air."
4. "Ten thousand dreams ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts."
5. "..see him standing there in the road looking back at him from some unimaginable future, glowing
in that waste like a tabernacle."
Cormac McCarthy creates a world in The Road that leaves the reader with more questions than answers,
pondering the heart of man and the relationship with God and the created world. With a vast vocabulary,
McCarthy has written a book worth studying for any age.
