The Road and St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Essay Example

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a boy and his father who travel along the state roads. The book is set in a post-apocalyptic time. McCarthy does not give the boy or the father names. The boy has only his father as his mother killed herself after she was born (Gale 5). The human population is tiny, and crimes such as cannibalism, murder, robbery, and human torture rule the day. They travel through vast barren and blackened landscapes with harsh weather conditions (Blasi 92). The boy and the father have to move to find somewhere safe, where they can get adequate shelter and food supplies. Throughout their journey, no matter what or who they encounter, they must try to maintain their humanity. The boy tries to be at his best to be one of the good guys.

Karen Russell’s book, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by wolves is about nuns taking in wolves. The wolves are sisters by blood. The nuns asked the parents of the wolves if they could assist them in raising the young wolves. The book is set in St. Lucy’s Church where the wolves live with the sisters. It is also where they are taught everything they need to act like people. They received skills such as how to appropriately dress and eat. Through their course, they find it hard to accept it. Later they change and graduate from the Catholic school but one of their sisters, Mirabella is expelled. The book is based on narrations of Claudette. It shows how one can adapt to new environments.

The central theme of the books is humanity. In both texts, humanity is shown, but there is a price to pay for it. In The Road, almost everyone has lost their humanity. As they travel, they encounter evil people who they must protect themselves from. As a way of ensuring protection, the man has to kill the attackers. With these actions, the son considers his father is losing humanity and turning to the bad guys. The man knows that he is ready to lose his humanity just to protect the boy. The price he has to pay to keep his son is losing his humanity. In Russell’s book, the girls at St. Lucy are adapting to be more civilized. As they progress to stay at the Catholic school, they become more human. They lose their animal behavior. It is the price they have to pay to stay in the new environment. The books show that whether humanity is gained or lost, there is always a price to pay.

In Russell’s book, the wolves behave in a way that can be mirrored to scenes on The Road. Though they can be reflected, they both portray something different about humanity. One of the moments is when Mirabella comes to Claudette so that she can lick her wounds (Russell 235). She refuses to do so and yells at her to do it herself. Such shows that although they were learning to be human, they did not act as humans always. The same case is when the man killed the attackers with the gun. He tried to console himself, but his acts were inhumane. During the dance, Mirabella betrays her sister and pushes her. She does this to try and conform to the society. Everyone including the nuns knew Mirabella could not act humanly. In the same case, though the father killed people, the son still believed he was always a good guy.

In both books, the environment occupied by individuals has significantly changed. They now have to adapt to the new surroundings. Thus, it acts as a connection. In McCarthy’s book, the man faces a different world from the previous one he knew. Everything has become different. He continually has dreams and remembers how it was like during the old world (Gale 4). The environment itself has changed from the beautiful place he used to know to rugged landscape. His son cannot experience what it was like before since he was too young to see how it looked. He tries to go out of his way to make sure the boy feels what it was like in the old world. He even offers the boy a Coca-Cola (McCarthy 76). The sea has also changed. The father remembers the sea as blue (McCarthy 94), but it now looks grey. They have to find food supply and shelter and hence why they travel. They have adapted to take precaution in their journey. They are also used to going days without food or water. As the environment changed, so did the people. They feed on other humans for survival. The father has to protect his son from them consistently.

In Russell’s book, the wolves are taken in by the nuns. Their environment changes from what they were used to, to a different one. The wolves lived in a cave in the woods with their parents (Russell 227). The nuns took them, and they now have to live in dorms at St. Lucy Church. As the wolves changed their environment, so did their behavior. They now have to try to behave more like humans. The wolves have adapted to wearing human clothes and eating human foods. Previously, they did not eat food such as peas but now they could. They are even taught how to ride a bicycle and dance. The wolves were used to run around in the woods. They now indulge themselves in reading books from the library and try in every way possible to act like humans. The wolves have to adapt to the environment so that they can graduate.

In the Road, as the boy and his father travel, they continue being inhumane. The main reason they are is because the world has changed. An individual can no longer trust anyone for fear of being attacked and eaten. They find supplies in an abandoned house; they take almost everything without leaving some for the owner. This can be interpreted as inhumane. Also, they see a burnt man who had been struck by lightning. They both did not bother to help the man or check if he was okay. They later leave people they found in the basement without rescuing them. It can be seen that the son and the father are both losing humanity.

At first, at St. Lucy, the girls hated their elder sister Jeanette. They considered her as a show-off, and all she wanted was to be noticed. Later after their stay, the girls began loving each other. They even embraced their elder sister. Though they resented each other at first, they later were able to love each other. It shows that the wolves were becoming human.

The books are also different in the approach they use. In The Road, the people had turned and abandoned humanity. They saw it fit for their survival. People practiced cannibalism and murder. It was no longer safe to trust anyone, and they rarely aided others. At some point, they had to kill those who attacked them to protect their supplies and themselves. The boy feared they too were becoming the bad guys. McCartney shows the environment one inhibits can change his or her behavior. The change of behavior is not necessarily entirely. Russell, however, shows that it’s not necessary that the environment changes one’s behavior. It’s the person’s decision whether to change or not. In the book, Mirabella decides to resist the influence of the environment, nurse, and her fellow wolves. She refuses to embrace humanity and sticks to wild behavior. It reaches a point where there is no hope for her, and she has to be expelled (Russell 245). The others accept this and accept letting her go, especially Claudette.

The idea of good versus bad is also noticed. It has a lot to do with humanity and the environment. What is good is considered humane and what is bad is inhumane. Even so, the texts outlook the theme differently. The wolves in Russell’s book were first viewed as wrong. Such is according to how they behaved and carried themselves around. During their first period in school, the wolves did what they wanted, including afternoon naps (Russell 228). The nurse had no authority over them. The wolves were disobedient and disrespectful to the teachings of the nuns. However, the nuns persisted in teaching the wolves manners and obedience. It is where the theme comes out. Russell uses a different approach to show it. In contrast, McCarthy’s book reveals the idea in a post-apocalyptic way (Blasi 91). He uses the boy and the father as people fighting the bad people who are thieves and murders. The environment causes this war of humanity, whether good or bad. The father considers himself still the good guy, even though he murders people. He tries to justify himself it is just self-defense. The father and the son find the thief who stole their supplies (McCarthy 133). The boy urges the father not to let him die. Here, there is a struggle between what is good and evil.

The differences are significant in both stories. The settings of the stories are unlike. The Road is set in a time when evolution has occurred, and humanity among people is depleting. Russell’s book is set at a time when humans can interact with animals, especially wolves. Such shows that humanity was increasing among people and animals. The book also portrays that in the church was where humanity existed and beyond there was no humanity. The compositions each tell a different story in their way. The reader is meant to read these differences by how they understand the stories. Everyone has a distinct understanding of a story and how it reflects them. However, the authors use specific characters to portray the differences. In Russell’s book, the characters Jeanette and Mirabella are used. One of the wolves refuses to adjust to the environment. The other quickly adapts to the environment and does what the nuns require of her.

In The Road, the characters are the father and the boy. Both try to be good, but the father acts in ways that the reader would judge as one of the bad guys. No matter what, the boy tries to act the part of a good person. He pleads with his father to allow Ely to join them (McCarthy 89). Before parting ways with him, he offers him food. The differences provide teaching in both stories.

The meaning that can be derived from the contrast is humanity is vital. The nuns acted humanly as possible towards the wolves. They tried out of their ways to deal with Mirabella, but it was inevitable. It all comes to a point where efforts bear no fruit. So they had to expel her. But even in their doing so, they did it properly. The case for the boy in McCarthy’s book, he tries to see the good in everyone despite not knowing them. He is not judgmental, though he is aware that there exist bad guys.

In conclusion, I agree that animals and people can adapt to their new environment. In respect to humanity, the books portray different adaptation to the surrounding. In the Road, the boy and the man change to be inhumane. In Russell’s book, the wolves become humane as opposed to their previous wild behavior.

Works Cited

Blasi, Gabriella. “Reading Allegory and Nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of the Language of Nature.” Arcadia 49.1 (2014): 89-102. Retrieved from https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:333840/UQ333840_OA.pdf

Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2015, pp.1-7. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AqBwCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=themes+the+road+cormac+mccarthy+&ots=6mKBCHGjwB&sig=szIhhfEPKJx5JPhIAV-1PFCGGyA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=themes%20the%20road%20cormac%20mccarthy&f=false

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Pan Macmillan, 2009, pp. 1-150. Retrieved From http://www.academia.edu/download/33690800/Cormac_McCarthy_-_The_Road.pdf

Russell, Karen. St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Random House, 2008, 2^nd edition pp. 225-246.