The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Dissident Heart · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:59 am Post subject: Prometheus

MA: Not to harp on the theme, but that seems to support the idea that the novel presents civilization as a phenomenon with two aspects: one centered on growth; one centered on self-destruction.

Prometheus was the character in Greek myth who stole fire from the gods, gave it to humanity, unleashing the great spark of technology and civilization. Zeus was most perturbed by Prometheus' hubristic foresight, and felt compelled to punish the maker of men and civilization with

Quote:
such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life, and Prometheus shall see their misery and be powerless to succor them. That shall be his keenest pang among the torments I will heap upon him."

Prometheus was chained to a rock where a giant eagle would eat his liver, only to have it grow back each day and with each day the eagle would return to tear at and devour the titan's flesh.

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 4/12/07 11:02 am

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

Mad: What's interesting is that the boy carries it so much further than his father.

This is what makes me think it is the latter, Mad; that “it's innate and specific to him.” Also there is no time, without constant pressure from the boy, that the father chooses to act altruistically to anyone but the son. So, though the son can learn from the father that you take care of your own, where does the faith in strangers come from? I think it has to be innate. There is no scene in the book, that I can recall, where the boy learns it.

Though the boy embodies an innate sense of compassion, the father has only his memories. Although the father’s flashbacks never touch on any specific moment where he acted compassionately or received compassion, I think we can assume he experienced these moments. It is this memory of a society that once was that can allow him to die, without killing the boy.

The pivotal scene for me, however, with regard to the father’s faith in finding others, is the underground bunker. I think if the father really had no hope of finding other “good guys,” he would have lived out the rest of their days there. The text hints at safety issues that required them to move on. But the bunker hadn’t been found to that point (years after the incident). The father, ever imaginative and adaptive, could have figured some way to hide the door. They could have kept watch during the day and slept in the bunker at night. Even if there came a point where they were discovered, the father could have easily killed the child and himself then. There was no reason to believe the road was any safer than the bunker. And the bunker itself was laden with supplies. It was that desire to go south, to go and find others that pushed them on. Yes the father’s knowledge of his sickness probably propelled that desire. But if the father really had no faith in finding others, would they have left or would they have lived some nice weeks/months/years out in the bunker and died there?

MadArchitect · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:44 pm Post subject: Re: the Road

Niall001: I really have to wonder how it is that John Wayne is capable, let alone willing to add the boy to his family given what we learned of life on The Road.

I don't think we're meant to take that as given. The boy's future is still precarious. All that his trust implies is the possibility of forming some kind of auspicious unity, which is a possibility precluded by the father's unflagging suspicion.

irishrosem: This is what makes me think it is the latter, Mad; that “it's innate and specific to him.”

The gray area between may be more realistic. That the boy learned the specifics of the moral view from his father, but that his tendency to carry it towards an ideal form is his own characteristic. It doesn't seem reasonable to suppose that, had the boy been raised by one of the cannibal clans, he would have developed a sense of value in helping others. But I think you're right that the differences between his and his father's application of the general moral premise indicate differences in temperment that are really only sussable in personal (rather than social) terms.

So, though the son can learn from the father that you take care of your own, where does the faith in strangers come from?

Someone else quoted the passage where the boy argues that his father's stories aren't true. Apparantly, in the father's stories, they're always helping other people. So that's probably one piece of the puzzle; that he learned it, in part, from the "mythology" (I use the term loosely) rather than from his actual conduct.

But if the father really had no faith in finding others, would they have left or would they have lived some nice weeks/months/years out in the bunker and died there?

Well, I think there are probably some other factors involved, but probably the best argument isn't psychological or rationalistic, but symbollic. The bunker is too much a grave. In some sense, they could have survived there for as long as the supplies held out, but it wasn't activity, and in that sense it would have always been just a form of settling down into death. Whether or not that thought occurs to the characters, I think it's somewhat implicit in the narrative drive of the novel. The road invites activity, and as long as you're active, you're resisting that urge to settle into death. As I recall, it isn't long after they've left the bunker that they run into an old man who says something along those same lines...

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: Re: the Road

Niall: From what we learn of the father throughout the book, I think we can guess that either he a deathbed conversion to optimism, or he expected that his son would follow him to the grave shortly. In his mind, it was only a matter of time, and it would be a horrible death at the hands of cannibals.

I think there is something profoundly compelling in the deep generosity and driving compassion exhibited by the son...there is something in the boy's loving consideration for an otherwise unlovable world that, essentially, inspires the father. In other words, maybe the father is not so future driven as much as presently doing whatever it takes to keep this beautiful, precious, adorable, awesome and holy generosity alive...this reckless hospitality and boundless compassion is all the hope he needs for envisiong a future worth living.

The father is not optimistic, as much as in love.

MadArchitect · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: the Road

Well, that's complicated, DH, as it also appears that the father feels the need to stifle the generosity in order to save the son. He urges the son to be less hospitable and less compassionate in the interests of survival.

No doubt the father loves the son, but it's also possible that his love for his son is in deep conflict with his love for the ideals the boy seems to embody.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:51 am Post subject: Generosity and Hospitality

MA: the father feels the need to stifle the generosity in order to save the son. He urges the son to be less hospitable and less compassionate in the interests of survival.

The father's lack of generosity and hospitality is an effort at defending their lives. I think the life worth defending (as the father sees it) is one filled with generosity and hospitality...thus the complication/conflict you describe.

What makes this torturous trek worth while is the fire of generosity and compassion that animates the boy. In order to tend that fire, acts of violence and hoarding are necessary...or, at least the father sees no other option.

The boy seems to think that this fire will suffice and it will be met with similar fire in those they meet along the road. Maybe he has the idea that the fire will kindle a spark in those who lack it: it is contagious, so to speak, and it will spread. Maybe he thinks there is no person so dark that this small light wont make a difference. It is like the agapic impulse or satyagrahic practice of Dr. King and Ghandi: these radical acts of loving kindness and generous hospitality will awaken the sleeping compassion of the most vile and violent of dark souls.

The father loves this and wants to protect it: perhaps for the hope of future generations as well as simply something worthy of care here and now, no matter future possibilities. But, to protect this compassion, he must kill, even murder.

I think the author captures this deep human mystery in the dynamic between the father and son.

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 4/19/07 11:55 am

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

Mad: The bunker is too much a grave. In some sense, they could have survived there for as long as the supplies held out, but it wasn't activity, and in that sense it would have always been just a form of settling down into death.

Yes, but for me that choice demonstrates that the father had, at least, some faith in finding others. He didn’t choose the grave—rich though it was. He chose the road, full of danger and doubt; but, also the only choice with hope.

I think this constant beckoning of the road echoes the idea of mythology that’s played around most of our responses. (In fact, the road could be a character unto itself—taking its curtain call alongside the absent mother. Neither living entities, both enormously present.) The father, just before finding the bunker, tells the boy that they must keep going: “This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up” (116). The road beckons them to continue to try to find others—and offers the possibility that they will. And the father, to encourage the boy, invokes the myth of the “good guy,” equating the myth with that activity. In this sense--finding solutions to problems, working hard for his and his child's survival, pushing on despite dire circumstances--the father fulfills the "good guy" role.

But when the child asks about the “good guys”: “So where are they?” The father replies: “They’re hiding…From each other” (155). And the father will never fully incorporate the "good guy" image of never giving up, into choosing to trust someone. We’ve discussed that the child’s opportunity to trust the final stranger was only made possible by the father’s death. That the father would have never taken the leap of faith required to trust another person. I found in this the same hesitation that people have today, even in our relevant physical safety, to reach out to others. The fear is probably more emotional, than physical. But the symptoms are the same. No one will reach out until another person does so, and thus we wander around “hiding…from each other.”

D.H.: The father is not optimistic, as much as in love.

Mad: No doubt the father loves the son, but it's also possible that his love for his son is in deep conflict with his love for the ideals the boy seems to embody.

Mad, I love the conflict you spelled out here. They were both rattling around in my head, but I never plugged them together. I think this is really a true nugget of the story. So, in the end, when the father dies leaving the boy alone, which love wins out? Is it the father that can’t kill his son: “I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant” (235). Or is it the man who sees in the boy all the possibility of the society that haunts his memory, the world he once had but doesn’t anymore: “Who will find the little boy?/ Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again” (236)

MadArchitect · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:41 pm Post subject: Re: the Road

irishrosem: Yes, but for me that choice demonstrates that the father had, at least, some faith in finding others. He didn’t choose the grave—rich though it was. He chose the road, full of danger and doubt; but, also the only choice with hope.

I don't know. I'll have to think about it. At most, it's starting to sound like part of the father's internal conflict that he can't reconcile his desire for community with his distrust of others.

Incidentally, I think we've been a little hard on the father. He's distrustful, and that's potentially fatal for the son, but we have to bear in mind the big reason for his mistrust: he's seen the end of the world. We should probably try to keep in mind the passages in which he remembers seeing the fires on the horizon, as I'm sure those are images the father keeps in mind.

(It also points back to that weird Janus-faced motif of fire running through the novel. The good guys are carrying the fire; the world was consumed by fire. Does that mean that the fire the good guys are carrying also contains the potential to destroy everything?)

So, in the end, when the father dies leaving the boy alone, which love wins out? Is it the father that can’t kill his son: “I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant” (235). Or is it the man who sees in the boy all the possibility of the society that haunts his memory, the world he once had but doesn’t anymore: “Who will find the little boy?/ Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again” (236)

A little of both, I'd say. In the helplessness of his final bout with mortality, he seems to finally find some reconciliation. It's almost as though his helplessness had freed him up to trust in the boy's promise. He assures the boy that he'll be alright, and I don't think he's trying to conceal anything at that point: I think he honestly believes it, no matter how improbably it seems from a realistic point of view.

In fact, I almost hate to suggest it, but given that the entire book has followed the father's point of view to the exclusion of the child's, you could almost imagine that those final passage after the man's death are the father's dream. He gets to lie down and die, and the boy makes it after all, and spends the rest of his life with his father's memory in the back of his head. But it's too easy to dismiss a character's happy dreams, so I'd hate to take that suggestion too literally.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:04 am Post subject: Pilgrimage to Goodness

Mad: The bunker is too much a grave. In some sense, they could have survived there for as long as the supplies held out, but it wasn't activity, and in that sense it would have always been just a form of settling down into death.

irishrose: Yes, but for me that choice demonstrates that the father had, at least, some faith in finding others. He didn’t choose the grave—rich though it was. He chose the road, full of danger and doubt; but, also the only choice with hope.

Uncertain motion on the dangerous road was better than constrained inactivity within the secure bunker. Nothing is secure in their world, nor certain. The bunker was an oasis for this untrained and illprepared pair of desert nomads. Are they on pilgrimage?

Later generations might see the bunker as a hallowed resting spot: a holy shrine in memory of the miraculous generosity that sprang forth for the extraordinary pair, providing incredible sustenance and unexpected protection for their sacred journey. Future pilgrims will journey along this terrible road in rememberance of the fire that fueled the fragile hope of the human race... .. .

irishrose: “Who will find the little boy?/ Goodness will find the little boy. It always has. It will again” (236)

Goodness gracious, gracious goodness. Excellent selection of text irishrose (althruout this thread). Goodness (in this sense) seems more than an ideal or concept...but as an active agent that seeks out and pursues people: a force and power that protects and sustains. The father doesn't say, "Good people will find the boy, they always do"...but "goodness".

A Pilgrimage to Goodness...that meanders crookedly through hell.

irishrose: The fear is probably more emotional, than physical. But the symptoms are the same. No one will reach out until another person does so, and thus we wander around “hiding…from each other.”

Mad: Incidentally, I think we've been a little hard on the father. He's distrustful, and that's potentially fatal for the son, but we have to bear in mind the big reason for his mistrust: he's seen the end of the world.

PTSD...post traumatic stress disorder...a debilitating condition that often follows a terrifying physical or emotional event causing the person who survived the event to have persistent, frightening thoughts and memories, or flashbacks, of the ordeal. Persons with PTSD often feel chronically, emotionally numb. Once referred to as "shell shock" or "battle fatigue."

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

Mad: Incidentally, I think we've been a little hard on the father.
D.H.: PTSD...post traumatic stress disorder...

I think this is a good place to veer off on another topic I had considered regarding the father. I think it would be much different to read this book as a parent. We’ve discussed the competing needs of the father to protect his son and to reach out for some community interaction. But can the reader realistically expect the father to trust another, considering all that he has been through? (And considering that his wife left him alone? We still need to get to a discussion on the wife/mother.) The man’s purpose, particularly after his wife’s death, is quite clear: “My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand?” (65). In fact, are we projecting onto the father ideals that he doesn’t even necessarily contemplate. There may be no need for the father to consider when and where to try and trust someone. There is no one to trust, because there is no one left from the world the father knew.

The text is replete with memories of the father’s past, a past the son can never understand. Perhaps the son is capable of looking for the communal world of old because he has no experience of what once was. The father, on the other hand, is continually haunted by this past (PTSD):

“Then one day he sat by the roadside and took it out and went through the contents…A picture of his wife…[he] sat holding the photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and they went on” (44).

“The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought” (75).

The can of soda, the lonely books abandoned on the bookshelf, a childhood bedroom. Each day the father leaves behind a vestige of the past only he knows, a spark of the fire only he possesses. And each memory he experiences alone with no capability of transferring that experience to the boy.

“He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins…What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.” (111).

In the end, the father is utterly and totally alone in this dystopian world:

“Maybe he understood for the first time that to the boy he was himself an alien. A being from a planet that no longer existed. The tales of which were suspect. He could not construct for the child’s pleasure the world he’d lost without constructing the loss as well” (130).

The father is truly a tragic figure in this story, but he certainly does not deserve undue criticism. His death is necessary for the child to move on, just as the eventual demise of any parental figure’s role is necessary for a child to finally grow-up—particularly if that child is to take a step forward from his parent’s generation. In the end, I think a parent would read this and only hope they would do as well for their own child, as the father did for his.

D.H.: A Pilgrimage to Goodness...that meanders crookedly through hell.

D.H., here’s another quote that references goodness. I linked them in my notes, but I can’t seem to work it out on the page. I figured I’d give it to you just in case you’ve got something working there:

“There were times when he sat watching the boy sleep that he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it wasn’t about death. He wasn’t sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or about goodness. Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all” (109). Death…beauty…goodness


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