Parenting in Two "New Worlds"

The unnamed father and son in McCarthy's (3) novel live in a world in which "nights (are) dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." The father and son are endless travelers seeking a safe place where the young boy can grow to maturity and the father can survive long enough to achieve this goal. A constant refrain throughout McCarthy's (6, 107) novel is the repetition of the word, "OK," poised often as a question from the father to the son which brings an affirmative response from the son.

However, it is quite clear that neither the father nor the son are "OK." The son asks his father a telling question, "are we going to die?" and receives the answer "sometime, not now" (10). The relationship between the father and son is beyond intimate and the father's goal is to ensure that his so

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rew on a 1992 novel by P.D. James that described a world suffering from global infertility. Into this world, a child is born - the first child brought into the world in 18 years. It is a child of a "fugee," or a woman of color living in Great Britain during a time when illegal immigrants are being hunted down and killed. Theo Faron is a government functionary who is suddenly thrust into the position of caring for the young African woman and her child. He becomes a sort of surrogate parent, a stand-in for the absent father of this miraculous infant. Like McCarthy's father, Theo's role is to ensure that the child and mother will survive. There are some differences between McCarthy's (255) father and Theo's character. Theo is a man of action who is willing to kill if necessary in order to protect the child who has come into his life. McCarthy's father is not capable of killing. Even though he confronts a thief who has stolen the food and supplies he and his son have gathered, he gives in to his son's pleas that the thief not be harmed (McCarthy, 257). The two fathers are alike in their willingness to sacrifice themselves in the interest of a child. McCarthy's (259) protagonist sees himself as "the one who has to worr
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Alfonso Cuaron's, Theo Faron, Human Project, Theo McCarthy's, PD James, Project McCarthy's, , Children Cuaron, father son, survival skills, live world, mccarthy's father, Alfonso Cuaron, York Vintage, worlds depicted, final gift, father theo's, child mother, human project,
Approximate Word count = 1303
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)