The road, by Cormac McCarthy, has many relatable themes to today's society. From creating special bonds with special people to a rough presidential election putting the country on edge, The Road provides many opportunities to link to the current real world.
This book takes place in a post apocalyptic time period in the future where much of the population has died out leaving two characters struggling for survival. After a long time of being isolated, living, and traveling all alone, a special trust is made between them that is similar to some now. According to www.lifesitenews.com , the number of parents raising a kid alone is up to about 30%. Although the situations are very different, children with these lives must create strong bonds with the parent that they have because for a long period of their life, it’s all they have. In The Road, the boys father literally is all he has left in the world, so he also must have a good, lasting bond with him to survive.
Pollution is another important topic of The Road. As the boy and his father press on to their destination, the presence of ash is evident everywhere, and smog still lingers around cities even after civilization has since been gone for years. “Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wires strung from the blackened light poles whining thinly in the wind” (McCarthy, 7). As the book goes on, even more ash and other pollutants are explained and identified, but the characters reactions and views towards these things remain the same; unalarmed. Pollution in today's world is a huge and still ongoing problem that is creating harsh environments for plants, animals, and whether we know it or not, humans! One very similar phenomenon between the book and this day in age, is the presence of smog in our big, very populated cities. For example, the people of Beijing, China must wear masks just to stay healthy.
In more recent news, another important topic in The Road is what actually happened to cause the apocalypse, whether it was all natural causes, or some man made reason. No more the 24 hours ago (July 28), the country of North Korea declared war on the U.S.A. As the boy and his father move across the country, they see many things that sadly, could be in our (maybe more near) future. In today’s day in age, it wouldn’t be crazy to believe that an atomic war between the nations really could effectively end civilization in a vast area. Take the chernobyl incident for example. Just a single reactor exploded back on that day in 1986, and the radiation was enough to offset an entire, bustling city. Just the tests of nuclear weapons by the United States put off up to a thousand times the amount of chemicals that the accident did (wikipedia.org). If North Korea actually does any of these outrageous things they say the will, there's more than not a chance our nation and possibly the world could turn into a post apocalyptic setting, similar to The Road.
Maybe on a slightly humorous/sarcastic side that can also be related is this year's presidential election. Between people hating Hillary Clinton, And the way Donald Trump talks and runs his mouth, something bad is bound to happen regardless who wins. For example, if Donald Trump really does follow up on his word and bans the Muslim religion, that could make 2.75 million people very angry, and even whole nations mad at the United States. And even though this may be worst case scenario, these angry nations could get so fed up with us, they could eventually join North Korea and declare war on us and end much of the civilization on our continent.
Even though the book, The Road, takes place sometime in the future, many of the events and topics of the book are similar to today's day in age. Whether it be pollution or getting through a crappy election, we as the United states have gotten through it and taken many steps to avoid catastrophes. But, in the event that we don't solve an important problem with another nation or make a big mistake, McCarthy shows us by writing The Road that nothing is impossible and bad things really can happen to this pictured perfect nation.
2 comments:
In my post for that week when I wrote about The Handmaid’s Tale, one of my main topics focused on the environment as well. Just like The Road, The Handmaid’s Tale is also set in the future and it is clearly shown that the environment is a tremendous problem. I believe that both books use the downfall of the environment to serve as a warning to the readers of what possibilities could come in the future if something isn’t done in the present. Cormac McCarthy never tells the reader exactly why the setting of The Road seems post-apocalyptic, but your theory of a nuclear war would make sense considering how McCarthy describes the areas the Man and the Boy travel. I think there is a reason to why the setting is very demolished is so open ended. I think McCarthy wanted to make the readers think throughout the book why everything looks and appears the way it does so that they could make their own predictions. When I read The Road I actually had the same prediction as you, because not only would a nuclear war fit the description of the setting of the book, but also with tensions between countries have grown as well as more and more countries creating nuclear missiles. But this theory is definitely not the only one that can be come up with. The possibilities are endless by McCarthy not describing the why or how to the readers of how the world got to that point in the setting of The Road. In addition, I liked your comment about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, because yes, we are in trouble no matter who gets elected for president.
I too read "The Road" and the topics you brought up relate to the real world so well. I'm glad you brought up the pollution aspect of The Road and how that is already becoming a huge topic today, especially in Beijing. I believe it was last May that Beijing had a full 24 hours with just public transportation... no personal cars or motorcycles. People either had to take the public bus or walk to their destination. Scientists were studying that day in Beijing and the smog decreased so much, that people could see actual roads and roof tops! People in Beijing also reported coughing less and their headaches becoming more tolerable. This makes me think about how The Boy and The Man felt like walking in what I think was probably radioactive. You made a good point by saying that the world is more close to that reality than we think. The Road definitely gave me a wake up call and made me think about what I could do to make my environment which I live in better for myself and other living things. I personally could not fathom living in a world like The Boy and The Man live in. Not only did you talk about the more serious aspects of The Road, I enjoyed how you related the book to this year's election. The Road can definitely have a satiric and ironic side to it if one relates it to the election. What will the world come to if Donald Trump is elected? Or Hillary Clinton? Could this world we live in do a complete 180 if one of these candidates gets elected? Only time will tell, and I really hope America won't end up like it does in The Road.
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