The Road by Cormac McCathy is set in a background which has been affected by war and calamity. It also presents a state whereby, there are good and bad guys inside. Because the people have faced a lot of problems and in order to survive, they had to turn on each other. There is uncertainty in the lives of the people in it. In The Road, we find the man and his boy surviving on food which has been left over by people who are already dead or people who have been captured by the bad and cannibal road agents (McCarthy 87). Although they are not only surrounded by fear, bad weather, and illnesses but also there are no hospitals, food insecurity, water scarcity and many other factors which forced them to just survive through, they are stilling following their faith for survival. The man and the boy must have an idea of giving up in a through out the journey but because of their beliefs, they still make it through most of the conditions. However, wars, climatic change, pandemics and other crises which result in surviving in the post-apocalyptic.
In The Road, the man tries to keep the boy out of bad influence; he tries to encourage him by telling him that they are the good guys. “Are we still the good guys? He said. Yes. We’re still the good guys. And we always will be” (McCarthy 74). The man was very determined to keep the boy within his beliefs that he knows it is the best for him to keep. Others had given up hope of maintaining their own belief of being good guys. This loss of hope makes them make food out of other people. They still believe that it is favorable to shave their hair. Most people think that making themselves neatly is comfortable even though he and his son were faced with calamity and struggle; they had to keep up their positive faith. Yet, the morality is under threat of getting extinguished in future when calamity and other worldwide crisis are introduced to the world. Because such crisis will force people to do whatever they can in order to survive, the factor of changes in culture is seen whereby the road agents have turned to be cannibal. However, it is clearly seen how faith can be greatly compromised by the factors which people go through in the society. The Road is, therefore, presenting how changes in a man’s way of living, can change his way of survival, and thus forcing him to conform to the circumstance of lack of supplies in order to continue living.
Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous weapons on earth and many people believe that this is the weapon which will lead to the end of human being. Nowadays, there are threads of nuclear weapons with nations like North Korea testing their weapons in series for more than ten years. The US government is comforting the world and citizens that they have everything in control, that nothing bad is going to happen as they are as the super powers to contain everything. Another factor which may also cause concerns and uncertainty about this issue of nuclear threads is when other countries like China or Russia join with North Korea in order to make this mission of owning nuclear weapons come true. This will thus lead to loss of hope and eventually may lead to nuclear warfare (Howard, Michael, 31). In The Road, we found that the man and his son is fleeing from a dreadful winter and thus they are moving towards the coast hoping that they will find better climatic conditions down there. “And we are still going south. Yes. So we’ll be warm” (McCarthy 18). The details about the weather condition McCarthy depicts in the man’s throwback is vague, “A long shear of light and then a series of low percussions” (McCarthy 51) can be just a man who witness a volcano explosion. However, the description the author depicts in the Road can be clearly considered as the evidence of nuclear winter. The author mentions, “He studied the sky. There were days when the ashen overcast thinned and now the standing trees along the road made the faintest of shadows over the snow” (McCarthy 95). Moreover, nuclear winter is defined as smokes from burning areas will lead to the bolt out of the sun (Lamb Robert) and it also comes as a result of numerous explosions in a nuclear war according to science. The Road indicates a future which is full of changes in different aspects so that people will face a lot of problems and many dies because of nuclear explosions and war.
Food insecurity happens when people lack enough food to sustain them for a given period of time and it also exposes people to problems and stress which make them suffer psychologically and health. People who also face food insecurity are forced to take anything eatable as food even though in the normal conditions, they would not keep it an option. In The Road, the man and the boy are facing food insecurity that their supplies is insufficient to sustain them for the journey which forces to even take wasted food which are remnants of the old world. It means that they had gone through a lot of food shortage problems and they don’t mind other health problems as long as they can survive which result in consuming dirty and waste food.
Diseases and pandemics are the main course of death in the present world. Many people die of various diseases have come up and many others are very dangerous and their cures are not yet to be discovered. This has caused death to many. People now live in fear of being infected with diseases like HIV and AIDS and also the abrupt outcome of outbreaks like Ebola and other deadly diseases. When we imagine a future full of wars and disorder, where people have nowhere to call a hospital, what will it become of them? In the story, the man is sick coughing profusely which finally led to his dead. While they went down the road, they meet many dead bodies, this shows us that there should have been a disease outbreak and with the lack of hospitals, the people had to die. This uncovers the uncertainties of the future when people are confronted by epidemics and diseases which cannot be treated.
Economic inequality is whereby there is an imbalance in the economic status of many people across the country. Worldwide, there are millions of people who are jobless and thus they just fight hard economic conditions and many lose. This leads to poor housing, lack of education funds and many other factors. In the novel, we encounter a condition whereby, the boy and his father are in very harsh economic conditions and they couldn’t afford even food for themselves, they live on expired food which has been left by people who were living in the old world. Economic inequality is also well explored when they came across an old man who identified himself as Ely. This old man had no supplies and this condition made the boy convince his father to let the man share their dinner with him. Economic inequality is also seen when a thief stole the supply for the two which was found later and everything was taken from him. This shows us the extreme economic inequalities of people in the world. This book reflects the reality of what is really happening in the modern world. People are suffering across the world. From this novel, the future is, therefore, holding a lot of bad conditions which humanity will face. With the outcome of wars and conflict, people will suffer so much.
Work Cited
Lamb, Robert. "The Science Behind "The Road"." Stuff to Blow Your Mind. N.p., 02 Dec. 2009. Web. 04 Feb. 2017.
McCarthy, Cormac. The road. New York: Vintage, 2007. Print.
Smith, Joel B., and Dennis A. Tirpak. The potential effects of global climate change on the United States. Vol. 1. Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1989.
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