One of the most obvious themes in The Road is the end of the world. There are many speculations on how the world will end, but Cormac McCarthy never seems to tell us what his idea is. What he does instead is gives us the image of a dead world due to some big catastrophe.
WSJ: For novels such as "Blood Meridian," you did extensive historical research. What kind of research did you do for "The Road"?
CM: I don't know. Just talking to people about what things might look like under various catastrophic situations, but not a lot of research. I have these conversations on the phone with my brother Dennis, and quite often we get around to some sort of hideous end-of-the-world scenario and we always wind up just laughing. Anyone listening to this would say, "Why don't you just go home and get into a warm tub and open a vein." We talked about if there was a small percentage of the human population left, what would they do? They'd probably divide into little tribes and when everything's gone, the only thing left to eat is each other. We know that's true historically. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572.html
This is what Cormac believes will happen in the end of the world.
"They'd built a fire there and charred billets of wood lay struck in the melted tar together with ash and bones." (70)
Here, the father is seeing the bones of the man he killed piled up, for he was eaten by the men he was traveling with, showing how Cormac applies his ideas of the world ending and people eating each other in the book.
The interesting thing is that Cormac never gives us much historical background of the disaster, what happened exactly, how it was caused. I think that the purpose of this is for one to find out (on our own) what can lead to the scenes in The Road. By not giving us a specific cause to the disaster, we can analyze the problems in our world that can lead to a faster end. With the world ending, nothing will matter. I think Cormac does a very good job in expressing this in his writing.
Another interesting thing about The Road is the grammar. There a lot of errors but I think that the purpose of this is to help the mood of the book along with the theme. Nothing of what mattered before matters one, not even grammar.
There is some criticism on this, though.
"I also feel offended -- yes, offended -- by the mean, miserable view of humanity in this book shoves in my face. But my dislike for this book seems to transcend any mental or aesthetic considerations, because as I suffered through these first few pages I felt my body physically rejecting this book like a badly transplanted organ. I would look down at my hands and discover that the book was closed. I'd open it, struggle through a few sentences more, and then look down and discover it closed again. Reading The Road felt like swimming in a pool of thick hard mud, and I tried and I tried but I could not get past page eight."
"And then there are those stubby ungrammatical half-sentences, those prose signature of junior high school students everywhere, and of Cormac McCarthy."
WSJ: For novels such as "Blood Meridian," you did extensive historical research. What kind of research did you do for "The Road"?
CM: I don't know. Just talking to people about what things might look like under various catastrophic situations, but not a lot of research. I have these conversations on the phone with my brother Dennis, and quite often we get around to some sort of hideous end-of-the-world scenario and we always wind up just laughing. Anyone listening to this would say, "Why don't you just go home and get into a warm tub and open a vein." We talked about if there was a small percentage of the human population left, what would they do? They'd probably divide into little tribes and when everything's gone, the only thing left to eat is each other. We know that's true historically. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572.html
This is what Cormac believes will happen in the end of the world.
"They'd built a fire there and charred billets of wood lay struck in the melted tar together with ash and bones." (70)
Here, the father is seeing the bones of the man he killed piled up, for he was eaten by the men he was traveling with, showing how Cormac applies his ideas of the world ending and people eating each other in the book.
The interesting thing is that Cormac never gives us much historical background of the disaster, what happened exactly, how it was caused. I think that the purpose of this is for one to find out (on our own) what can lead to the scenes in The Road. By not giving us a specific cause to the disaster, we can analyze the problems in our world that can lead to a faster end. With the world ending, nothing will matter. I think Cormac does a very good job in expressing this in his writing.
Another interesting thing about The Road is the grammar. There a lot of errors but I think that the purpose of this is to help the mood of the book along with the theme. Nothing of what mattered before matters one, not even grammar.
There is some criticism on this, though.
"I also feel offended -- yes, offended -- by the mean, miserable view of humanity in this book shoves in my face. But my dislike for this book seems to transcend any mental or aesthetic considerations, because as I suffered through these first few pages I felt my body physically rejecting this book like a badly transplanted organ. I would look down at my hands and discover that the book was closed. I'd open it, struggle through a few sentences more, and then look down and discover it closed again. Reading The Road felt like swimming in a pool of thick hard mud, and I tried and I tried but I could not get past page eight."
"And then there are those stubby ungrammatical half-sentences, those prose signature of junior high school students everywhere, and of Cormac McCarthy."
http://www.litkicks.com/HatingMcCarthy
I like Cormac's writing. It just shows how dull and gray things can turn out to be.
They way Cormac shows how humanity is (the few left) is just his view of an ending, which is not insane because we can and will do that if we need to do so, in extreme circumstances for survival. One has to be more open to these types of ideas to solve our issues.
They way Cormac shows how humanity is (the few left) is just his view of an ending, which is not insane because we can and will do that if we need to do so, in extreme circumstances for survival. One has to be more open to these types of ideas to solve our issues.
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