What evidence is there that the setting of The Road might have been the result of a nuclear war/disaster?
Throughout this novel, the journey consists the man and the boy alone, they meet other people while travelling; however never allow them to continue the journey with them. There are a couple times when the man has a few flashback of a women, the reader would assume it is his wife and the mother of the child as when she was speaking to the man about travelling the road together; she spoke her mind that she believes “they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him”. As she had said “us”, it is likely they are a family; however when asking the man “we used to talk about death… we don’t anymore. Why is that?” the man simply responds that he doesn’t know. She then says “it’s because it’s here”, this leads to another assumption that she may had commit suicide.
Since the boy seems to be really young, due to events in the novel such as he always wants to help others, which means he still has an innocent mind and does not know much of the real reality of the world yet and how he didn’t know the what “coke” is which is a universal drink and much liked by many. It is therefore possible he was not born before the tragedy began. It must have occurred years ago, although there are still corpses and destruction everywhere; evidence to this would be when they came across the corpses and saw “shapes of dried blood” and “shrunken eyes”. This could suggest why the father is wary of everyone they meet, since he is aware there are “bad guys” out there who will kill them for food.
It could also imply that a nuclear holocaust may have happen and there are survivors as they meet several throughout the novel and at the end, the boy continues his journey on the road with a family that were also survivors and actually the “good guys”.
If we assume we are reading about the result of a nuclear war/disaster, what message(s) do you think might McCarthy be sending?
McCarthy could be sending several messages, within each character that comes into the novel especially; however the main characters would be main. The man could symbolise selfishness, this can be seen through society however in this situation it could be seen as in his nature to do so. Selfishness can be seen as the only way surviving for himself and the boy within this novel, the message in this would be that sometimes you got to think about yourself first; for the man he thinks about the boy first then himself, as it is his son. His son can be seen as the opposite, more of a collective personality; where he always wants to help others when he sees them, especially if they are alone, hurt or in need of supplies that himself and his father has. This can be the intentions of father and son contrasting each other, which one would actually help them survive to the end and which one will put them in danger.
The first major event of the book would be when the father and son see the man that has been struck by lightening and is severely injured, the boy pleads his father to help the injured man; even so, his father tells him there is nothing they could do. This could be a message as there are times when people witness horrific events, yet they cannot do much to prevent it or help in some way; examples of this would be natural disasters.
What might be suggested by the many descriptions of a scorched landscape covered in ash? What is implied by the father’s statement that, “On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken them the world”?
The descriptions of the scorched landscape covered in ash, could be a real physical feature where a large scale volcano eruption has happened; all that is left behind would be ash. Another reason why it may have been suggested and repeated many times, when be the empties of their surrounds; which makes everything dull and grey due to many average aspects are gone. Average aspects would include colour shops, buildings, clothes, billboards etc; but as it is said there is a huge amount of ash everywhere, it could also suggest that a holocaust was attempted to happen as they tried to burn the whole land around the man and boy’s path.
The father may have stated this due to the emptiness and lack of people around, he believes that as there are only a few people left in their world; most of them cannot be “good guys” (godspokes men possibly) but instead the “good guys” have been taken away from their world, such as the mother of the boy.
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