Category Archives: November 8

Life in a Post-Apocalyptic World

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The apocalypse that preludes the events of The Road begins with the end of linear time: “the clocks stopped at 1:17” (52). The end of time signals the end of stability, and the devolution of the world into an anarchic wasteland populated by cannibals and blood cults. In the relentlessly gray twilight world, “things believed to be true” (89), such as the existence of God and the different between good and evil, right and wrong, are thrown into question. Continue reading →

On The [Post-Apocalyptic] Road Again

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When the world we know is gone, what else is there to live for? This is a question that has been tirelessly touched upon in this class in relation to the other stories we’ve read/seen so far. For the other stories, there has always been a glimmer of hope for a better future, whether it is through women’s fertility, heavenly immortality, or even peace on Earth. For McCarthy’s The Road, I found myself troubled with the fact that I couldn’t initially find a clear reason for the man’s desperate want to survive. Continue reading →

Life, Death, & The Road in Between

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While reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, I found myself getting very emotionally attached to the storyline. Although I am not generally an unattached reader, I do find that my sympathy or feel for characters and plot structure varies among different works of literature. With this reading, I can say that I was impressed with my degree of commitment to McCarthy’s writing and the tale that he narrates. When forced to contemplate why this book strikes out to me, I can only resonate this particular interest with the overall theme of human survival.
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Survival

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After a slow start, I have become captivated by The Road. Though I didn’t like McCarthy’s writing style at first, it has grown on me, and I think it is especially powerful given the simple but heartbreaking conversations the father and son have, and is also effective in conveying the bleak landscape and the frightening encounters the two experience. Continue reading →

Where Do They Go From Here?

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While reading The Road at Starbucks, someone came up to me and said, “That book is so boring.” I had to disagree. He was referring to the stylistics and the (he argued) over-done portrayal of “the human condition.” I feel that McCarthy is successful in his use of language in portraying a very real image of a post-apocalyptic world. The monotony of the language, the short sentences, and the sense of greyness that pervades the novel convey a very believable empty, threatening, and decaying post-apocalyptic world. Continue reading →