American Research Journal of English and Literature

 This research paper intends to explore how Cormac McCarthy presents, in his play The Sunset Limited, opposite ways and approaches, i-e, pessimism and optimism, adapted by different modern men living in the modern age. This paper efforts to search how on one hand pessimism and the feeling of meaninglessness in life leads to atheism and nihilism, while on the other hand, power of faith, if once gained, can change life and its purpose, no matter what race or class one belongs to. This paper attempts to find that though both, life and death are realities but it is veryimportant to find justification either to continue living in a world of suffering and meaninglessness or to end life. This paper also intends to prove that the divine voice which propels towards hope and goodness, if heard only once, never loses power and charm even if some intellectual force with its rhetorical argumentation tries to move a man of faith towards despair and death