Cormac Mccarthy The Road Essay
Nature Concealed - An Ecocentric Approach to Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”
Submitted by
M. Rajalakshmi
Asst. Professor
Department of English
Sri Sairam Engineering College
ABSTRACT
Nature and literature have always been inseparable. Nature in a world of hyper-technologism, Transcendentalism, Ecofeminism, dystopia and apocalypse are some of the key areas that the American nature writers of today deal with. This paper aims at rendering an ecocentric reading of Cormac McCarthy’s post- apocalyptic novel, The Road. The Road narrates the journey of a father and a son in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Set in a dystopian environment, the novel reveals an austere environment and nihilism throughout. It projects confusion and disorder through …show more content…
It is claimed to have been the first of McCarthy’s works to treat him as a nature critic. Buell writes, “Apocalypse is the single most powerful master metaphor that the contemporary environmental imagination has at its disposal”. The civilization in the world is lost. There is suspicion and mistrust against nature and fellow men. The opening lines of the novel portray how bleak the environment is.
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. (McCarthy, 3)
They awake in darkened woods every day. The two neither choose to remain in the woods or communicate with nature. If at all they do, it is done only for a survival. There is no immortal beauty seen in the Road. It is “Barren, silent and godless” (McCarthy, 4). More than a description of desolated wasteland, The Road is suggestive of the impact of that the careless attitude of man towards nature may bring in to this world. It is clear that there is irrevocable separation and this idea apocalyptic in The …show more content…
The seemingly hostile world in the novel is not what nature has done to mankind but what humans did to the environment in the name of industrialization and urbanization. The images which once were the symbols of fertility and progeny were then turned to a notion of death. The father believes that falcons, birds and colours are symbols of death. Most of the lives have already been destroyed by nuclear holocaust and the remaining people battle against the extreme weather, natural disasters like earthquake as well to
Submitted by
M. Rajalakshmi
Asst. Professor
Department of English
Sri Sairam Engineering College
ABSTRACT
Nature and literature have always been inseparable. Nature in a world of hyper-technologism, Transcendentalism, Ecofeminism, dystopia and apocalypse are some of the key areas that the American nature writers of today deal with. This paper aims at rendering an ecocentric reading of Cormac McCarthy’s post- apocalyptic novel, The Road. The Road narrates the journey of a father and a son in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Set in a dystopian environment, the novel reveals an austere environment and nihilism throughout. It projects confusion and disorder through …show more content…
It is claimed to have been the first of McCarthy’s works to treat him as a nature critic. Buell writes, “Apocalypse is the single most powerful master metaphor that the contemporary environmental imagination has at its disposal”. The civilization in the world is lost. There is suspicion and mistrust against nature and fellow men. The opening lines of the novel portray how bleak the environment is.
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. (McCarthy, 3)
They awake in darkened woods every day. The two neither choose to remain in the woods or communicate with nature. If at all they do, it is done only for a survival. There is no immortal beauty seen in the Road. It is “Barren, silent and godless” (McCarthy, 4). More than a description of desolated wasteland, The Road is suggestive of the impact of that the careless attitude of man towards nature may bring in to this world. It is clear that there is irrevocable separation and this idea apocalyptic in The …show more content…
The seemingly hostile world in the novel is not what nature has done to mankind but what humans did to the environment in the name of industrialization and urbanization. The images which once were the symbols of fertility and progeny were then turned to a notion of death. The father believes that falcons, birds and colours are symbols of death. Most of the lives have already been destroyed by nuclear holocaust and the remaining people battle against the extreme weather, natural disasters like earthquake as well to