Symbolism In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy opens to a desolate landscape with “nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before,” (McCarthy 3). The two main characters, named only as “the man” and “the boy”, struggle to survive in this bleak world, encountering a myriad of trials and tribulations along the way. Although the two main characters do not ponder much about the state of their ecosystem, their relationship is symbolic of the relationship between humanity and the environment. Throughout The Road, Cormac McCarthy uses the father-son relationship between the man and the boy to symbolize the current relationship between humanity and our environment. Through his word choice, characterization of the boy as weak, and

the changing dynamic between the two main characters, McCarthy reflects upon the parallels between the father-son relationship and the human-environmental relationship. As the boy grows up throughout the novel, the controlling nature of this relationship diminishes and becomes more interdependent, demonstrating the ever-increasing agency of our environment. Many critics argue that The Road is a religious allegory and that the boy is a christ-like figure. However, The Road the road can also be read as an ecocriticism, in which the boy is representative of the environment and the man is representative of humanity.
Throughout The Road the two main characters are left unnamed, only called “the man” and “the boy.” Furthermore, only one character in the entirety of the book is given a name and it is later revealed that this is not his real name (McCarthy 171). When asked about his real name “Ely” replies, “...I don’t want anybody talking about me. To say where I was or what I said when I was there. I mean, you could talk about me maybe. But nobody could say that it was me…” (McCarthy 171). “Ely” purposefully chooses to omit his own name, much like McCarthy has chosen to omit the names of the main characters. This lack of naming creates a sense of impersonality, much like the impersonality the environment carries towards humanity. Our environment does not care about humanity or our survival; it is simply part of our world that bears no feelings about the prospects of humanity. This sense of impersonality is exemplified in passages such as “...the boy was crying” (McCarthy 74). By leaving out names, otherwise emotionally charged situations read more like facts. While the man and the boy do seem to have a close relationship, the lack of names leads to a feeling of detachment, which reflects the detachment of the environment from humanity.
The critic Ashley Kunsa makes the argument that character naming in the road is religiously based, and that this new system of naming is representative of a search for “the God-given capacity to name things correctly,” (Kunsa 60). However, “the man” and “the boy” are not “names” per se, but rather literal descriptions, named much like objects such as “the book.” This system of naming does not seem religious, but rather utilitarian and indifferent. Kunsa also points out that McCarthy’s lack of naming in The Road is untypical of him, as in some of his other works he names dozens of characters (Kunsa 61). If the main characters had been named “the father” and “the son,” a sense of a familial bond would have been established, but McCarthy chose to call them only by their most basic descriptions, a stark distinction from his other books. Furthermore, naming a character “the man” implies a sense of maturity and strength, while naming a character “the boy” implies a sense of weakness and childness. This naming structure is reflective of the way humans speak about the environment; we refer to the Earth as “mother nature,” again implying a sense of weakness and delicacy that needs to be protected, much like the man feels a need to protect the boy.
McCarthy’s usage of the phrases “good guys” and “bad guys” can also be used to draw parallels between the father-son relationship and the human-environmental relationship.

Throughout The Road, the man and the boy constantly refer to themselves as “good guys” who would never even entertain the notion of cannibalism. The boy is very concerned with being a “good guy,” asking “Are we still the good guys?” after the father kills the man who tries to hurt the boy (McCarthy 77). The “bad guys” in the novel have seemingly lost what we consider to be their humanity. In real life, we can view the “good guys” as the people fighting to protect the environment, much like the man fights to protect the boy. The “bad guys” can be seen as a symbol for those who do not care for the environment and instead use it fulfill their own needs, much like the “bad guys” in the book only are concerned with their own survival. Much of McCarthy’s word choice seems to reflect a struggle between morality and immorality, much like humanity struggles with the morality of what we have done to the planet and where we go from

here.
In his article “Embodying place: An Ecotheological Reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road,” Richard Russell argues that McCarthy’s words choice of “carrying the fire,” is religious in nature and suggests a “possibility of a future restoration of the earth through the survival of the boy,” (Russell).

While the boy does seem to be truly good in nature, as he wants to help others and be a “good guy,” the boy can be seen as more than a christ-like image. While “carrying the fire” could refer to a religious mission, it could also refer to the unconditional continuation of the environment. Thus the boy, as a representation of the environment, “carries the fire” to symbolize the hope and the everlastingness of our environment. Furthermore, the boy does not seem like a particularly hopeful or religious figure. Throughout the book he grows apprehensive and jaded towards the world, but is still characterized as a child. These traits are not consistent with a strong, hopeful, and optimistic religious figure who brings hope for the

future.
Throughout The Road, the boy is in constant need of protection. Although the boy is rarely directly threatened, the man devotes himself to the caring of and protection of the boy. At one point after being threatened by a stranger, the man tells the boy “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God,” (McCarthy 77). The man feels an intense, religious need to care of the boy, which reflects upon humanity’s desire to care for the environment. Current environmental discourse seems to revolve around “saving the environment.” However, the environment cannot die, it can only change. In his Glossary of Selected Terms, Buell defines the term “anthropocentrism” as, “The assumption or view that the interests of humans are of higher priority than those of non-humans,” (Buell 134). The idea of “saving the environment” is an anthropocentric idea, in that we are not “saving” the environment, but only keeping it in the way that best serves our interests. We want to “save” the environment not for the environment itself, but for the desires and needs of humanity. In a way, the man is reflecting this in his relationship with the boy, as one may argue that the man is protecting the boy for selfish reasons. For example, as the man is dying he cries “I can’t hold my dead son in my arms. I thought I could but I can’t,” after the boy pleads for the man to “Just take me with you,” (McCarthy 279). The man is keeping the boy alive not for the boy himself, but so that he does not have to witness the death of his son. This resembles the relationship that humans have with the environment, in that we want to protect it for our own gains.
The boy in The Road is constantly characterized as scared, cold, and tired; all traits we associate with weakness. The boy is constantly always starving, falling down from fatigue, and terrified of the world around him. On page 113 the boy says “I’m so scared” during a precarious situation, and a multitude of similar passages are found throughout the novel (McCarthy 113). This weakness of the boy can be seen as a symbol for our environment, as humanity tends to view our current environment as hurt and fragile. This idea is again anthropocentric in nature, as it is assumed the environment is “hurt” because it is no longer best suited to serve our needs. In certain places throughout the novel, McCarthy characterizes the Earth much like he characterizes the boy. On page 197, McCarthy describes the boy as a “small dirty face,” and on page 5 describes the landscape as “ashen daylight congealing over the land.” Both of these descriptions create hopeless imagery of dirt, grime, and desolation, strengthening the parallels between the boy and the environment. The critic Adeline Johns-Putra argues that “...at the heart of climate-change discourse resides an anxiety about whether we have cared enough…” (Johns-Putra). This can be reflected in the man’s anxiety about the boy, as he is always worrying if the boy is safe and well-taken care of, and seems to feel some amount of guilt for raising the boy in terrible conditions. However, the boy is never well, always starving and exhausted, and this seems to sadden the man greatly, as he often laments as to how thin and weak the boy is. Although the situation between humanity and the environment is less hopeless. the anxiety humanity feels about the environment is similar to the anxiety the man feels about the boy’s well being.