Analysis Of The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

Lillian Shumaker

Professor Tribble

English 152

May 8, 2015

The Road

Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road, illustrates what life in a post apocalyptic world would resemble after humanity has been eradicated. In this deteriorating world, chaos reigns and death is constant. Without a sovereign state to establish laws and guidelines, individuals must make their own judgments in order to survive, causing a clash between good and evil. According to the Leviathan, morals do not exist in man’s natural state because to be in a natural state is to be free from authority (Williams). This barren world displays human life in its most simplistic form, causing men and women to act upon their own will for survival. The apocalypse in The Road marks the end

of the world by emphasizing images of death and destruction, incorporating the use of limited structure as a writing style, and illustrating the loss of beauty that the world undertakes.
Due to some unknown catastrophic event in the novel, the world has been stripped of life and left to decay. What is left of the world is described as “barren, silent, (and) godless” through the use of skeletal images that indicate a realm of death and destruction (McCarthy 4). Throughout the novel, the man and the boy encounter remains of cities that are “mostly burned”, abandoned houses, and frames of cars that resemble extinction (McCarthy 12). As they move further into their journey, the landscape becomes more barren and hopeless and begins to exhibit the presence of death and evil through bones of humans and decaying bodies. When reaching the ocean, they find ribs of fishes along the shore like an “isocline of death” (McCarthy 222). The man believes that “every day is a lie” because death is the only certainty (McCarthy 238). During their journey, the man and the boy encounter the extremes of survival in this barren world when witnessing an infant being cooked and discovering a house full of humans being used for cannibalism. Many of these images display the desperation and hopelessness that the world has succumbed to. Even though death is constant and always seeking a victim, the man and the boy must continue to “carry the fire” in order to preserve what little of humanity exists in the world (McCarthy). By displaying the skeletal images to reflect the lifelessness that the world has undertaken, Cormac McCarthy communicates the death of a society and the end of the world.
Cormac McCarthy uses limited structure as a writing style to reflect the barren post-apocalyptic world of The Road.

The minimal punctuation and fragmented language incorporated throughout the novel serve to enhance the absence of luxuries that the desolate world occupies. For example, the words “cant, dont, wont” and more do not have apostrophes (McCarthy). Just as the man and the boy suffer from having minimal supplies to live on, the sentences throughout the book endure minimal grammar and lack of structure. By highlighting this connection, the writing style can be described as lifeless just as the world inside of the novel stands. Although the missing punctuation is deemed incorrect to today’s standards, the world in which the book takes place is absent of any structure. The end of the world doesn’t deploy any standards or guidelines because there is nothing left for a society to exist. Without authority to give society laws and structure, humans do not have any morals or guidelines to live on. Cormac McCarthy successfully demonstrates this through his unique use of

grammar.
Some argue that the integrity of the boy represents the beginning of the new world by acting as a standard for future generations, but it is impossible to create standards for humans in a world of anarchy. Thus, the possibility of the boy giving meaning and order to the world is unrealistic. The novel’s structure is used to reflect this lack of substance in the world with the use of gaps between paragraphs. This writing style that the author purposefully uses validates that there is nothing left and eradicates any possibility of a future generation.
According to the Book of Revelation, Jesus marks both the beginning and the end of the world (New International Version, Revelation. 1.8). The bible states that Jesus’ return will be “revealed… in blazing fire with… angels” after the apocalypse obliterates the earth (New International Version, 2 Thessalonians. 1.7). Throughout The Road, the world is charred and covered in ash due to fire and destruction. This description is similar to the ideas presented in the Book of Revelation due to the fact that the fire represents the end for humanity and destruction of beauty.
The destruction and presence of evil throughout the novel display the loss of beauty in a slowly deteriorating world.

Everything that was once beautiful has been destroyed and continues to fade. Trees are still falling, colors cease to exist, and ash continues to take over everything. In the beginning of the novel, the days are described as being “more gray…(than) before” (McCarthy 3). During their journey, the boy and the man confront many evils with road agents and “bad” people that travelers confront. When coming upon what was once a grand estate, the travelers are overwhelmed with a sense of tragedy and wretchedness that the cannibals have given to the house. Desperation takes over what is left of the human race, causing people to resort to degrading acts to survive. These cannibals and rapists symbolize the deterioration of the human race and exemplify the ugliness at world’s

end.
In the novel, most of civilization has been destroyed and anarchy is the only thing that remains. Due to this, the world continues to dwindle while death reigns and evil prevails. A world cannot continue to thrive in this state, leading towards the notion that it is the end for all humanity.

Works Cited
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
Revelation. New International Version. Colorado Springs: Biblica, 1973. Print.
2 Thessalonians. New International Version. Colorado Springs: Biblica, 1973. Print.
Williams, Garrath. "Hobbes, Thomas: Moral and Political Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 2005. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. .