Doomsday

The Road does not follow the apocalyptic paradigms of the traditional apocalyptic tale or our postmodern readings. McCarthy seems more concerned with the human condition in the midst of total infrastructural and social breakdown, particularly how moral conviction and love perseveres alongside the primal brutality of humans and the wild.

This new world, or America, is a harsh landscape, cold and gray and laden with strange mutilated and barbaric men. The search for food and shelter, death and perpetual pain move the story along. Morality in the face of this total desolation is what keep’s our attention and emotions, at least mine.

It’s curious to see how what happens when the prophet, judgment and the us & them are absent from the story. Which is not to say the death of billions or being brought up to heaven isn’t emotional, but I can’t place myself on either side. I don’t consider myself an evil sinner yet I surely haven’t accepted Jesus. I can’t place myself in Revelation’s duality thus Revelation, vs The Road, feels rather weird.

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“God” is mentioned thrice in the first half, I think, and not as an enactor of doom but as the whiff of the empty bottle. God is gone, or, God is with the pair’s every step.

I want to elaborate on the point made before in class on how to portray God in a fictionalized account. First there is the reader’s personal perspective on religion. While one could read the Man’s questions as misguided belief in a Godless world, another could see the Man wrestling with his Creator. There is also the issue of trying to describe God’s form and intended actions without coming off hokey.

McCarthy does not seem to be lauding or criticizing religion, rather using God as view into the Man’s heart – why does he persevere? Who does he blame? Who does he get angry at?