In his post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy tells the gut-wrenching story of a father and his son, who set out on a journey to survive in a world that makes Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature look like a Club Med resort. McCarthy’s narrative reveals the natural relationship between a parent and a child, and, more particularly, the deep-rooted human passions that connect a father to a son. The story also demonstrates what a father will do to protect his son.
To that end, there is a horrifying scene in the novel when the man’s son is physically captured by a pedophilic cannibal, who threatens to slit the boy’s throat in the father’s presence. Without pausing, without thinking, without doubting, and without remorse, the father shoots the predator in the head. It was a simple and easy act.
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