The Role Of Isolation In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

All through human history, isolation has been used as a torture tactic and way to interrogate political prisoners. After only forty-eight hours of being alone, the brain can already start to play cruel tricks on one’s senses. Throughout Cormac McCarthy’s Novel, The Road, isolation played an important role in the man and the boy’s lives, but the effects of those days spent alone are permanent. In a case of loneliness, not complete isolation, humans are more susceptible to developing high blood pressure, infection, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Being lonely can mess up a person’s sleeping habits, social interactions and logical reasoning. Michael Bond with BBC also adds that “The mechanisms behind these effects are still unclear, though
When Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal were captured and held in an Iranian prison for four hundred and ten days, each of them were subjected to solitary confinement and sensory deprivation. Sarah later wrote a book about her ordeal, and in a report by NBC telling the reporter that, “"It erases you," she said of living alone in a cell. "It's like being buried alive. You can't talk to anyone, you can't laugh, you can't have a personality. Your world shrinks. It becomes smaller and smaller. Everything you know, everything you loved, seems far away. I would think about that person I once was. I would long for that person." (Pesta). Sarah was subjected to being locked in an almost empty cell with little to no physical contact, and only towards the end of her imprisonment was she able to see her friends. Her report also details the mental break downs that happened, and on a few accounts, she’d punch the walls until her knuckles bled, see lights with no source, and hear screaming but not knowing it was her own. The lack of mental stimulation caused her to have hallucinations, and question her own reality. It wasn’t until she was able to step back from the event that she could even begin to get a sense of reality again, but years after her imprisonment she isn’t the same woman. At the end of her speech, she said, “"We're doing much better," she said of their emotional challenges in the wake of the ordeal. "There was a time when we didn't know when the symptoms would go away, when we would feel normal again. Life is a new normal," she said. "I'm a different person now. But I like the person that I am." (Pesta). In The Road, however, the man and the boy never gained a break from the gray skies and ash covered land. There is no space for their minds to decompress and relax, because everyday survival is a