Cormac McCarthy

The theme I chose to focus on was how he closely relates The Road to his own personal experiences with his son. And trying to express how he protects his son and this idea of what a father son relationship should be like. In a wall street journal interview McCarthy talks about how his son was the co-author because some of the conversations that the boy and the man had in the book are exact conversations that he and his son had. In another part of the interview they ask him why the father and son never say " I love you" if this is supposed to be a love story between the two. And he responded that he thought it wasn't neccesary because it wouldn't add anything to the story, but I thought it was a way to indirectly say that actions speak louder than words and if the book is supposed to show how a father would do anything for his son in any circumstance which it does then there is no need for "I love you". And then also he choses not to give the man and boy names. Before discussion and research I thought that was mainly because the  past has been erased and it is gone now and with that goes your name. I also thought that it represented who you were and gave you an identity and now there is no need because all but a few humans are remaining and no one needs to be able to know who someone else is. But know I know that is somewhat because he wants the father and son to represent him and his son or for that fact any other father and son. McCarthy says that his work is often driven by pain because if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts you might not do anything. So along with the relationships in his personal life McCarthy also displays a sense of dark, violent, and painful periods throughout his books and movies. In No Country for Old Men there is violence, depravity and mayhem as in All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian and The Road. But overall I think that Cormac McCarthy tends to make his novels personal and always somehow come back to his interpretation of the west or death or religion etc.