Books: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Having read “No Country For Old Men,” I was familiar with Cormac McCarthy’s writing style. “The Road” was not as disorienting as the other novel because I was already accustomed to reading McCarthy’s style – the absence of quotation marks.

The point of view (POV) in “The Road” is clear. The transition from narrative to dialogue and back to narrative is easy to follow.

“The Road” is a post-apocalyptic novel. Mr. McCarthy does not explain the chain of events that led to the setting, but there are hints along the way as we follow the man and the boy to their destination – the coast.

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” reinforces the concept that less is more. Mr. McCarthy did not embellish the setting in the beginning of the novel to create a sense of place. He gradually added layers so that the reader had a complete sense of time and place by the end.

There is the constant presence of ash. The atmosphere is covered in ash. The boy was not even born when the disaster occurred, but years later the ash has not dissipated. The disaster was not a local phenomenon, but a worldwide calamity.

The narrator said, “The clocks stopped at 1:17.” Whatever caused this post-apocalyptic world was sudden and powerful enough to disrupt society. The man did not have time to plan for it.

The man and the boy encounter incinerated bodies indicating people were killed where they stood with little time to flee from the disaster. The fully stocked bomb shelter also indicates the suddenness of the calamity. The owner of the shelter did not have enough to time to seek refuge.

There is the complete absence of life, except for humans and the occasional stray dog. No birds, cattle, horses, reptiles, and insects. Either these life forms perished in the disaster, or were consumed by the survivors.

Towards the ends of the novel, the man and the boy walk through what appears to be a major city. The narrator mentions melted glass on a building, and this is a clue indicating the blast originated in the major city. The narrator also mentions melted rubber tires, another indication of extreme heat.

These clues provide a sense of place, where the man and boy lived relative to the disaster. They lived on the outskirts of the blast radius, and were walking through the epicenter of the devastation.

The sparse language added to the desolate environment. The road was deserted. The trees were bare. Life was burned off. Mr. McCarthy did not have to embellish the setting. He let the sparse language define the sparse setting.

The dialogue between the man and the boy also reflected the desolation. They are exhausted, starving, struggling to survive. There is almost nothing left to say except, “We have each other.”

Mr. McCarthy does not give proper names to the main characters. They are known as the man and the boy. They see the world as a struggle between good guys versus bad guys. The good guys could be simply defined as people who will not eat other people. The bad guys are cannibals. In this world, there is no political or economic ideology to fight over, just humans who will resort to barbarism just to survive.

The absence of proper names does not mean the characters lack depth. The boy was born and raised into this post-apocalyptic world. However, he was instilled with values, specifically respect for human life.

The man is mostly concerned with their survival, but the boy is concerned for health of the man who was hit by lightning, the old man and the thief. The man continues on his journey, but the boy tries to remind the man of his humanity.

The boy wants to help the man who was hit by lightning, but the man says, “He’s going to die anyway.” The boy refuses to believe the best course is to walk away from a person who is dying.

The boy wants to share some food with the old man. At first, the man refuses, then he agrees, but says the old man cannot spend the night with them. The man relents and agrees to share a meal with the old man.

Their meager property was stolen and the man and the boy catch the thief. The man degrades the thief by making him undress and turning over his clothes and shoes. The boy protests. He argues that they retrieved their property, and there is no need to take his clothes. The boy is concerned over the safety of the thief.

The man tells the boy they are the good guys because they are carrying the fire. The fire represents the best of humanity. The man said he would not live if the boy dies because his sense of humanity would die with the boy.

In a sense, the ash, the road and death are secondary characters and constant companions. The ash speaks to and reminds the man and the boy about the level of destruction. The road is the only hope they have for survival. Death hovers over the man and the boy because it is the only solution they have if they encounter and outnumbered by evil.

“The Road” is a metaphor of the present. We are not cannibalizing each other in order to survive, but we are consuming ourselves through greed, and sometimes it feels like we are losing our humanity.

But, just as the boy kept his humanity in a post-apocalyptic world, we can be comforted in knowing that as young people expose themselves to different ethnic groups, different ideas, different lifestyles, they will become immune to the various isms that threaten to destroy us as a species.

The ending is controversial. The man mentioned the boy carried the fire, and the fire represents humanity. The man lost a portion of his humanity because of his concern over the boy’s safety. The safety of others is not a consideration.

The boy was born and raised in this world, but the man instilled the value of life into the boy. The man may have forgotten, but the boy constantly reminded him of his lost humanity.

The man is suspicious of others, but the boy has an innate sense of who to trust. It was the boy who told the man not to enter the house where the captives were held. The boy wanted to join the other boy because he wanted to be around someone his own age, someone he could relate to. He did not believe the other boy was a threat. The boy wanted to be part of a community and not a wandering nomad.

In the end, the boy had to make a “gut” judgment call, and go with the other man, based on that man’s word that he had a family of his own. The boy trusted his instincts and joined the family.

Mr. Vives, (my 10th grade science teacher in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico), said there is no such thing as a perfect extinction, a situation everything completely dies out. Something always survives.

The cannibals would eventually become extinct because cannibalism would not be able to sustain itself, but the community the boy sought had a better chance of thriving because community is based on shared sacrifice and burdens.

Maybe that was Cormac McCarthey’s message. Man can survive the apocalypse as long as man retains his humanity.

The question is, can we find our humanity to prevent the apocalypse.