Non Nuclear Families Essay

Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Families of the Post-Apocalypse
Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road displays different concepts of nuclear and non-nuclear families throughout the novel. In The Road the reader is introduced to different types of individuals and non-nuclear families and how they succeed in a post-apocalyptic world. Nuclear families are what many consider to be a traditional family, consisting of a mother, father, and children while non-nuclear families are families that are considered untraditional. However, when a traditional family is introduced the reader sees the failures of nuclear families rather than their success while non-nuclear families appear to be more likely to succeed in the sense of survival. Incidents

The group consists of a pregnant woman and two men, but later on in the novel the woman gives birth creating a nuclear family. The family consists of a mother, father, and an infant trying to survive, but this nuclear family does not last long in McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world because the mother and father eat their infant child. This shows failure of a nuclear family because the mother and father in this scenario do not even try to provide for their child for any length of time. After the child is born, they start a fire, cook the infant, and leave behind the leftovers in the ash. This shows the family’s lack of humanity and their desperation for survival by resorting to

One example of a non-nuclear family succeeding is the men with the diesel truck along the road. The reader can tell these groups of men are thriving when McCarthy writes, “How much do you have? There’s three fifty-five gallon drums in the bed” (McCarthy 64). The fact that these men have over one hundred gallons of diesel fuel to power a truck shows their success in McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world. This is a means of success because these men have a way of transportation across the country unlike the man and the boy who walk everywhere.
Another example of a non-nuclear family appearing successful in survival is the four men and two women cannibals with a basement of people used as a food source. This group of cannibals can be considered as successful because they have a secure food source and a permanent home. These cannibals had the ability to secure their food with a “large padlock made of stacked steel plates” (McCarthy