Death In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

In the Pulitzer-winning-novelist Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the protagonist and his wife express contrasting views on death. In the middle of an apocalypse, the man holds onto hope, while the woman is resigned and wants to die. Even though the man opposed his wife’s bend towards death in the first half of the novel, he shifts towards the stance of his wife as he himself nears death by the end. The conflicting ideas of the couple is revealed primarily through the words they use to describe themselves. Being alive when almost everyone else is not, the man calls themselves “survivors”(55), and the woman “the walking dead in a horror film”(55). She expresses her fear of getting raped and killed and eaten(56), emphasizing her resistance of continuing life. She would rather die, salvaging her dignity, than go through any more suffering. Calling
While his son is clinging on to hope, telling him that he will save some food for the father, the man accepts the approaching death serenely. His change in stance is clearly demonstrated through him using the very words of his wife: “it[death]’s here”(56)(278). However, the difference still remains. While the wife had wanted to take the son, who symbolizes hope, with her, the husband says that he can’t(279) and encourages the boy to go on. This, the possession of hope, is the decisive distinction between the couple’s stance on death. In a world where everything previously known disappeared into ash, anyone would meditate on death. The wife was one to resort to death for comfort, whereas the husband remained faithful to life. Though the husband adopted his wife’s attitude towards death by the end of his life, he still differs from the woman in that he maintained hope for mankind even though he was resigned about his own life. In writing The Road, Cormac McCarthy successfully illustrated the conflict between life and death, hope and