The Road: Survival or Redemption?

           

"The Road" a photograph by Addison Alford 

The Road
Cormac McCarthy
287 Pages
Vintage Books
$8.52on Amazon

The Road: Survival or Redemption
By Delaney Harness

     Filled with grey skies and short prose, The Road by Cormac McCarthy glimpses into the post-apocalyptic future of mankind.  A boy and his father head south, traveling a road of bleakness and death where nothing grows, trying to escape the armies of cannibals now taking over.   Told through the terse and cynical eyes of a father, McCarthy manages to capture the heart of humanity and survival all at the same time. The book forces us to look at two essential questions. What does it really mean to be human? How do you stay good in a world full of darkness?

The Road, Directed by John Hillcoat

   Cormac McCarthy is one of the most celebrated authors of the 21^st century. His accolades are many, including a Pulitzer Prize for The Road.  McCarthy was born in Rhode Island, but grew up in Tennessee and later Washington D.C.  He won multiple fellowships, which allowed him to travel and tour Europe. He has written ten novels, including No Country for Old Men and Allthe Pretty Little Horses. He is also an acclaimed screen writer and playwright.

           

     The Road captures the dark side of humanity, and deals a crushing blow to the psyche in a sense of dread and peril. McCarthy questions the depths of survival and the trust between humans. While the novel itself is set post apocalypse, it strikes a chord questioning what has finally brought mankind to the breaking point.

     Pulling the novel into real world contexts, I as a reader could not help but wonder if the next political move our country makes could change the course of human history. I cannot help but think that The Road foreshadows the eventual destruction of the world, as we know it.

     There are no happy endings in The Road. A sense of suffering is carried throughout the novel, and this book is not for the faint of heart. However, this novel is one of the most important books I have read in the last year.  It opened my eyes to the atrocities of the world, and left me with a sense of “what if.”

     The Road is an crucial argument between light and dark. As a testimony of human empathy and compassion, this novel should be on everyone’s list.