Particularly, even as they endure a world of cannibalism and tribalism, the two struggle mightily to maintain a sense of moral turpitude, even to the point of impracticality. This is perhaps the most tangibly real element of McCarthy's text, which focuses significant attention to the scorched landscape and its implications. In the passage where McCarthy introduces us to this landscape, he describes the man in a state of observation, telling that "when it was light enough to use the binoculars he glassed the valley below. Everything paling away into thte murk. The soft ask blowing in loose swirls over the blacktop. He studied what he could see. The segments of road down there among the dead trees. Looking for anything of color. Any movement. Any trace of standing smoke." (McCarthy, 4) the description is a hauntingly real manifestation of our nightmares in this age of global warming. Perhaps the most real and threatening aspect of McCarthy's work is its seeming absence of need to make mention of the event which caused this catastrophe. Instead, we are left to presume that it is our fault, which strikes quite close to home.

PART 2

1. Auster and Self-Reliance

Paul Auster's the Invention of Solitude is less a novel than it is a meditation of life, death, humanity and mortality. Somewhat absent of a narrative, it is instead the author's examination of themes and thoughts which have crowded his head in the wake of his emotionally remote father's death. In large part, the work at first seems a criticism of Auster's father, who has remained aloof from all others in the world until and beyond...

In many ways, this captures the understanding which comes to permeate the latter half of the novel, showing the author to be positively compelled toward emotional responsibility based on the strength of independence, which ultimately makes him a better husband and father.
At the root of this is an appreciation of the precious nature of life and the reality that a man only has himself in the end. It is alone that he must face the inevitable, which is so poignantly captured in the stunning first paragraph of the text. Here Auster observes that "one day there is life. A man, for example, in the best of health, not even old, with no history of illness. Everything is as it was, as it will always be. He goes from one day to the next, minding his own business, dreaming only of the life that lies before him. And then suddenly, it happens there is death. A man lets out a little sigh, he slumps down in his chair, and it is death." (Auster, 1) This captivating opener becomes an important principle in defining the narrator, who will eventually come to admire certain aspects of his father, recognizes that it was his father's solitude which allowed him to face this death alone.

Works Cited

Auster, P. (1988). The Invention of Solitude: A Memoir. Penguin.

McCarthy, C. (2006). The Road. Knopf.