Joseph
A.P. English
November 10, 2011
Los Jefes del Calle
In The Road by Cormac Mccarthy, some type of unknown apocalypse happens. The book takes place after the apocalypse, with some flashbacks to before. Through his minimalism, we can imagine many aspects of the book, while seeing larger concepts and truths of humanity from what he has written. An apocalypse, by Greek definition, means the removal of the veil. This means after or during an apocalypse, some previous falsehood will be corrected to the survivors. McCarthy exhibits many paradoxes in the book, one of the most notable being the intertwined relationship of two opposites, good and evil. In the apocalypse, the veil of the line between good and evil will be lifted.
The line that separates today’s evils from goods becomes lifted and evils of our world can be considered good in McCarthy’s The Road. Killing, plundering, and lying are evils in our world. Through irony, McCarthy depicts the pure evilness of these actions making them become saviors to the man and boy. Given the change of circumstances after the apocalypse, evils can be changed to goods. The boy and man encountered a hillbilly man who was held at gunpoint by the boy’s father. “He dove and grabbed the boy and rolled and came up holding him against his chest with the knife at his throat. The man had already dropped to the ground and he swung with him and leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet” (66). Later, in giving rationale about killing the man holding a knife to his son’s throat, the man says, “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?” (77). The man killed from necessity. This vile human’s death is a good in the post-apocalyptic world. If this action was not completed, the man would have killed his son, the most innocent, kind individual encountered in the novel. The man and his group of men would most likely find and eat the child. A murder saved all this horror, becoming a good.
Plundering has become a good for the man and boy. Without plundering residences and taking what is not theirs, survival would not exist. The boy and man plunder homes, stores, and a ship throughout the story. In saying a gratitude prayer to people who stashed the numerous supplies in an underground room beneath their lawn, which the boy and man took advantage of, the boy says, “Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldnt eat it no matter how hungry we were and we’re sorry that you didnt get to eat it and we hope that you’re safe in Heaven with God” (146). Only plundering from places where people cannot be found has become a good. It saves them and appears not to harm anyone.
Lying has become a savior for the boy. Lies told by the man help the boy rationalize their actions and establish their status as good or bad guys. In a conversation when the man says that the “bad guys” will not find them, the following conversation occurs,
“Do you think they’ll find us?
No. They wont find us.
They might find us.
No they wont. They wont find us” (148). The man cannot say with certainty that they won’t find them, but saying this helps the boy’s mind be at ease. In another instance, the man must have promised the boy that they will equally share all food and beverage items. The man broke this promise by giving the boy some hot cocoa, while retaining merely all water for himself.
“You promised not to do that, the boy said.
What?
You know what, Papa.
He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy’s cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back” (34). The boy did notice this unequal distribution of supplies. Had he not, the man lying about it would have resulted in better tasting cocoa for the boy with extra vitamins and calories. The man says to the boy, “We’re not going to die” (100). Obviously this is not true. Everybody dies. The man said this to the boy to raise his spirits.
The line that separates today’s goods from evils becomes lifted and goods of our world can be considered evil in McCarthy’s The Road. Trust, sharing, and society are goods in our world. When these seemingly good actions become evil in the post-apocalyptic world, paranoia develops in many, especially the boy’s father. He is wary of all others except his son, not knowing what their motivations are. When the man gave the slightest trust and didn’t just kill the hillbilly, all he got was a knife held to his son’s throat. The hillbilly dropped his belt with a knife sheath. “When he looked up the roadrat was holding the knife in his hand. He’d only taken two steps but he was almost between him and the child” (66). This is what trusting strangers gets you in the post-apocalyptic world.
Sharing does nothing but make you weaker and diminish your supplies. Sharing in this world can lead to your demise. The following conversation ensues between the boy and man in making a decision to help the total stranger, Ely,
“What do you want to give him?
What do you think he should have?
I don’t think he should have anything. What do you want to give him?
We could cook something on the stove. He could eat with us.
You’re talking about stopping. For the night (164-5).” The man knows a lot about survival and so wants to give Ely nothing. This would be the best for both the boy and man. They would have more food to last an extra day or two. They would not run the risk of being attacked by other people with this possible decoy. The boy is only surviving thanks to the man’s hardiness, skill in locating food, and carefulness.
The man and boy saw a phalanx of people trekking on the road. The men were equipped with pipe with leather wrappings, lanyards, spears, or lances. “Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that women, perhaps a dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites illclothed against the cold and fitted in dogcollars and yoked each to each” (92). This contraband of people functioned as a mini society. The adult men enslaved everyone else. They raped the children and women, evident from many of them being pregnant. They chained them all to one another. This is what society ends up becoming in this world. Nothing good will come of it. Terribly unfair class separations arise. The entire group will also need more supplies to feed and cloth the increased number of people. The men in the group solve this problem by killing anyone they come upon.
People often will only see beneath the veil after the world ends. When we lose the decorations and luxuries of life, the decorative line between good and evil will be lost as well. As Ely says, “There is no God and we are his prophets” (170). In this time, as things and people are being lost, so is the luxury of religion. As these disappear, so will the line between good and evil. People are the prophets to no God. God is viewed as the ultimate judge, and without him, no other deity will place a line between good and evil.
When no enforcement exists to punish the “evil”, no fear of punishment or want of reward exists. Many evils in our world and the post-apocalyptic world serve the individual. For example, killing eliminates competition and provides food and stealing provides you with more supplies. With nothing to check evils and apply punishments, everyone starts to do what serves them best combined with personal morals. These will vary greatly from person to person.
This line between good and evil represents a functional society, with evils punished to make the group good; when society is gone, so is the line. Growth, prosperity, innovativeness, adaptability, and laws help to define a functional society. Laws provide guidelines of right from wrong and provide consequences for wrongs. As societies fall and order becomes lost, nobody cares about laws and the differentiation between evil and good actions.
In McCarthy’s The Road, there was an apocalypse. The exact cause of the apocalypse is unknown. This apocalypse removed the veil from the falsehood of a line between good and evil for all survivors. No longer was there confusion between right and wrong as the line was lifted, to pastiche the two together into one. Good and evil become one another and their own opposite from our world to this new, post-apocalyptic world. It takes an end of the world for people to understand the truth behind this falsehood.
