9/17/19 Ryan Chee Period 7

9/17/19

Ryan Chee Period 7

Aim: How does McCarthy demonstrate the tenacity of love in a time of despair?

To start the class, we began with the Do Now:

Let’s make a brutally honest list of the joys and sorrows of truly loving someone.

Most people focused on the negatives of loving someone. For instance, Andrew compared

loving someone to having a child. Having a child takes lots of time and money. You’ll have to

provide food, clothes, and unconditional love. In the end, there will be many stressful moments

but it will all be worth it because they are your children. In addition, Billy notes that to love

someone comes with a lot of responsibility. You now have to take care of someone other than yourself and with big responsibility comes a few obstacles. On the other hand, Allan focuses more on the positive side. He says that loving gives people a sense of purpose, it gives you someone to empathize with. Humans are after all naturally social creatures.

Mrs.Fusaro summarizes and states that love can be both joyful yet miserable.

Love can bring you happiness but to lose it would be tragic. The bigger the love, the worse

the backlash will be when you lose it.

Moving on, we discussed about the recurring theme of cannibalism in the book with the quote:

“ What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening

on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close.

I’m sorry, he whispered, I'm sorry” 

Cormac pictured a ruined world where all morals were thrown to the wind.

People were killing and eating each other, doing anything to survive in their apocalyptic world. 

Why did Cormac use children? How is this vision of cannibalism so much more grisly and repugnant?

Compared to monsters like zombies and vampires, how are the cannibalists in Cormac’s world. 

Kelly responds by that to eat your own species as a human was just inherently wrong.

Monsters on the other hand can’t help it since they need it to survive, it is a necessary

process in their life. Steven adds on with the fact that cannibalism violates our human rights. Zombies

however have no brain and are therefore not conscious of their actions, so they should

not be held to the same standards. Andrew brings up the factor of circumstance in these situations.

If they were in normal world, cannibalism would still be highly taboo. In their post-apocalyptic world,

the morals tend to bend a bit. A baby in this world would be more of a burden to their survival so while

it is not right, it can be justified based on the circumstances.

What is the statement about the future?

Katherine starts off the discussion by stating that children are innocent and they haven't

gotten to experience the world yet. Taya then jumps in to say that children are our next generation.

They are supposed to be our hope for the future, a continuation of the human race.

Mrs.Fusaro chimes in and summarizes the conversation. Eating children is like giving up hope

for a future. What truly differentiates us from the monsters, nothing. Most of the time, you will

find that we are the monsters in many myths.

Finally, we watched a video of an interview with Oprah and Cormac.

In the video, Cormac states that the influence for his book was his own son which he

had when he was 66. Having a son at such an old age, Cormac doesn't have much time with his son.

Being older and having a son at that age makes you appreciate your time with your children more.

Cormac says that he sees the world in a new light.

In some ways, his personal life and relationship with his son can be shown throughout the book.

The son maintains an unrivaled compassion in this desolate world and is constantly

teaching him new things on their journey in the book to the South.

After that, we each went off to work on the summer reading project.

Student Reflection:

Today’s lesson introduced us to the human concept of love. Cormac McCarthy

portrays this emotion in a few different scenes throughout his book, The Road. For example,

the boy often shows compassion to everybody they come across, even though they are enemies.

My favorite part of today’s lesson was the discussion about the morality issue with cannibalism.

The survivors of this world have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive which is a huge taboo

amongst humans. To kill and eat each other goes against an established universal rule, that is

necessary for survival. The world wouldn’t be what it is today if our ancestors had killed

and consumed each other. What is interesting though is the different settings and circumstances

of our world and the post-apocalyptic world imagined by Cormac and how it impacts the decisions

we would normally make. In this desolate land, morals would tend to bend. All forms of love,

empathy, and compassion have left most of the people and have been replaced with a thirst

for survival.There is a basic need in each and everyone of us to survive and this would definitely

skew our decision making. Something as horrifying as cannibalism might seem okay in this world

because each and every one of the survivors is fighting to stay alive. If we were to be placed

into their circumstances, I'm sure that our way of thinking would drastically change as well.