EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE IN CORMAC MCCARTHY’S THE

ROAD

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University Dominguez Hills

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

English

______

by

Jennifer Romo

Summer 2019

THESIS: EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE IN CORMAC MCCARTHY’S THE ROAD AUTHOR: JENNIFER ROMO

APPROVAL PAGE

APPROVED:

______Thomas Giannotti, Ph.D Thesis Committee Chair

______Timothy Chin, Ph.D Committee Member

______Jonathan Hauss, Ph.D Committee Member

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my dear friend, Gisela Herrera, who mentored me throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies. Without her, I would have never understood the beauty of

English literature.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my committee chair, Thomas Giannotti, I express my utmost gratitude for pushing me toward better analytical thinking that further guided me into writing a much more narrow and cohesive thesis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL PAGE ...... II DEDICATION ...... III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... V ABSTRACT ...... VI CHAPTER 1 ...... 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 CHAPTER 2 ...... 4 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 4 CHAPTER 3 ...... 8 EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE ACCORDING TO CAMUS AND SARTRE ...... 8 CHAPTER 4 ...... 11 EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE IN THE ROAD ...... 11 CHAPTER 5 ...... 29 CONCLUSION ...... 29 WORKS CITED ...... 31

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ABSTRACT

This thesis analyzes existential crises and existential choices in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. Living in post-apocalyptic chaos where the characters constantly suffer from starvation and fleeing from cannibal cults, life’s worth is called into question. Atheist existentialists, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, provide explanations for the characters’ crises and the choices they make as a response. Camus’s perspective illuminates the absurdity of the characters’ lives since they constantly face death, making suicide tempting. To revolt against absurdity, the characters choose life instead of suicide. Sartre’s perspective expands this analysis through emphasising behaviors that create life’s meaning. The father expresses love and compassion toward his child but fails to extend caritas toward the rest of the human community.

The son, however, demonstrates the capacity for empathy and creates his own meaning by joining a new family in order to be part of a community that reflects his morals and values.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, a father and son attempt to survive in a barren and lifeless world. The situation in which the main characters live is nearly hopeless since unforgiving weather and lack of food have threatened all means of survival, to which, as a response, many survivors resorted to cannibalism in order to live. The boy’s mother commits suicide as a solution to such despair, but the father chooses to continue living and raising his son despite facing constant suffering. The pair decide to journey toward the coast in hopes of finding warmer climate; however, the consequences of continuing to live entail subjecting the child to the horrors of starvation and cannibalism. The father’s crisis worsens as his poor health brings him closer to death, which will abandon his child and leave the boy vulnerable to the hostilities of their world. Having to bear the burden of living weighs heavily on the father and calls life’s worth into question. While facing such a crisis makes suicide understandable and even justifiable, as the mother argues before her suicide, the father and son continue living and enduring their harsh environment together.

I will argue that atheistic existentialism illuminates the apparent hopelessness of the father and son’s lives and calls into question whether life could be worth living since they constantly face death. Through a Camusean perspective, I will show that the father makes the existential choice to continue living despite confronting pain, suffering, and uncertainty. To enhance my analysis, I will also use Sartre’s philosophy to explain that the protagonists’ actions create meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. The father admirably shares tender and loving moments with his child, showing that actions can create meaning even in the face of

2 meaninglessness and hopelessness. Sartre’s philosophy allows me to extend my analysis through discussions of free will and the anguish the father experiences as a consequence of choosing life over suicide, which leaves him to bear all of the responsibility of that decision. If one is free to create meaning, then surely the main characters’ behaviors make life worth living. The father proves the possibility of rejecting human depravity through his love for his only child. However, his decision to live forces the father to commit morally questionable acts for survival, thus highlighting the man’s moral ambiguities detailed throughout the narrative. Living in an environment dominated by blood cults inevitably fostered his distrust of other survivors, but this distrust forces him to abandon those in need or abandon that which is impossible to save even though the man emphasizes that he and the boy are “the good guys.”

Yet, the father stubbornly treks the road to demonstrate that they must keep living no matter how tempting suicide is. Despite depictions of the father’s moral ambiguities, McCarthy uses fire as a symbol for hope that goodness can still prevail through extending caritas toward the rest of the human community in an otherwise hopeless world. Judeo-Christian virtue ethics promote love and compassion, which the son demonstrates the capacity to express toward other survivors that he and his father encounter. McCarthy depicts caritas through the metaphor of

“carrying the fire” as it is repeated in the conversations between the father and son, and it suggests that there is hope that the son will, “Prometheus-like,” carry on human goodness with the new family he finds at the end of the novel (Kunsa 59). The son’s potential reveals his capacity to perceive himself in other survivors, thus allowing him to empathize with them and extend love and compassion. Despite tensions between Judeo-Christian virtues and atheist existentialism, extending love and compassion proves the boy’s capacity for human goodness, which is not necessarily guided or determined by God.

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Joining the new family means surviving for as long as possible without succumbing to cannibalism and without any illusions of an afterlife.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Applying Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling to The Road, Alan Noble examines “the absurdity of hope” by drawing parallels to the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to the father and son in the novel, stating that “[the father] is acting on absurd faith, trusting in the goodness of God without denying the evidence of the world’s end” (106). The father’s hope for the son’s future after the man dies rests entirely on his faith in God. In a similar vein, Marcel DeCoste argues that filial love, compassion toward the human community, and hope allude to Judeo-

Christian principles and virtue ethics. He argues that “The Road proffers the theological virtues-- faith, hope, and love--as definitive of its father-son relationship and of the true humanity that, despite McCarthy’s barbaric milieu, survives them” (68). Despite living in a blasted and lifeless environment dominated by cannibals, love between the father and son prevails, and it is this love that provides hope for the son’s future. This hope has been analyzed as the boy’s potential to perpetuate the goodness of humanity through sharing his love with others, comparing him to a messiah, and “in a sense, the boy could again parallel the biblical Isaac by becoming the seed of a great nation” (Noble 106). Since the new family has a young daughter, there is hope that she and the boy will have children of their own one day and thus expand their community. In

“Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ as Apocalyptic Grail Narrative,” Lydia R. Cooper draws parallels between The Grail Myth and the novel by analyzing the boy’s character as both

Perceval as well as the actual grail, concluding that “while the child exists, so too does meaning.

So too does humanity” (229). She adds, “in this grail myth, the end of the quest is not in sight, but the young grail bearer is heading out into the barren waste land with ‘the breath of God’ in

5 him, a breath that is defined in terms of inheritance” (234). Though the father dies in the end, he symbolically transfers divine qualities onto his son, which will allow him to persevere even in the post-apocalypse. These qualities, especially empathy, are necessary for preserving the goodness of humanity.

Though Noble and DeCoste argue the ways in which the novel illuminates Christian virtues of love and hope, readers can equally notice that the father and son’s actions reveal their construction of moral codes independent of Christian virtue ethics. Erik J. Wielenberg notes that

“while the novel is rife with religious imagery and ideas, it suggests a conception of morality and meaning that is secular in nature” (1). Through their behaviors, the father and son create their own moral codes and meaning without a Christian God to guide them or even determine their decisions. Even though there are moments in the novel where the father curses God for abandoning them and compares his son to a “golden chalice, good to house a god” (75), readers should not limit themselves to religious interpretations. Andy DuMont’s secular interpretation focuses strictly on a material perspective as he points out that “what makes the boy sacred is the fact that he carries potential futures, that he is life, or a piece of it, rather than a vessel for something seemingly more important” (67). In other words, the boy is not a messiah whose purpose is to save humanity; rather, his character depicts his potential to reach out to other survivors in an effort to create a community that reflects the boy’s goodness. This way, the child and his new family at the end of the novel can endure their harsh environment for as long as possible while knowing that death will come no matter what they do.

Without relying on the hope that a higher power will guide humanity, the pair embrace their lot in life, knowing very well that it will only end in death. Applying Camus’s ideas to The

Road, Michael Keren asserts that “the father and child’s walk on the road with no illusions about

6 the absurdity of the world may be seen as an updated version of Camus’s revolt” (55). Keren aptly explains that the pair recognizes life’s absurdity but trek the road either way to argue that

“they simply endure, and their endurance becomes a major literary representation of revolt in the face of the absurd” (63). Furthermore, there is something to be said about the way in which they behave as well as their views of their own behaviors. Matthew Fledderjohann explains that the duo sustain life through repetitive, ritualized behaviors and language. In a Sisyphean act, the father and son repetitively seek food and shelter in order to survive; however, Fledderjohann interprets their behaviors as being elevated to ritual ceremonies, thus imbuing meaning in their actions (50). The father draws from his memories of the world before its destruction, like telling his son hero stories and fondly recalling his childhood, which shows the father preserving

“shards of meaning and extending that meaning to the future” (50). Therefore, memories of civilization and order convert mere repetitive actions into rituals that make life valuable and worth living. Tender and loving moments highlight the duo’s relationship in addition to their repetitive behaviors that ensure their survival. Their love pervades the text as it “counsels other virtues that enable life-giving relationships with others” (DeCoste 68). Choosing to live is not limited to the father’s search for food and shelter; rather, living is an opportunity to share love and compassion with his only child even though suicide is a tempting option. Though

Christianity emphasizes the importance of these virtues, atheist existentialism provides a wider lens through which readers can analyze The Road.

Shane Phoenix Moon applies Sartre’s concepts of freedom and abandonment as well as anguish to McCarthy’s early novel, Child of God, but these ideas certainly apply to The Road as will be demonstrated later. In addition to Keren’s Camusean analysis of the novel, Sartre’s philosophy informs readers that “the worlds McCarthy presents in his fiction suggest that life

7 isn’t void of meaning, but rather demonstrate the existential view that meaning does not depend on a pre-established or given moral order to exist; instead, meaning depends on a created moral order” (Moon 10). Indeed, even with the absence of civilization and social structures, the father and son commit to a code that rejects cannibalism and embraces life’s absurdity no matter how difficult it is. This illustrates the father’s attempt to construct their identities as the good guys whose duty is to carry the fire, which McCarthy uses to symbolize the goodness in humanity.

Cooper’s chapter, “There is No God and We are His Prophets,” focuses on the father’s storytelling and its power to propel human goodness even in the blasted landscape, but she also acknowledges that “the father fails to fully live up to his claims that there is such a thing as human ‘goodness,’ but at least he tries. And his efforts seem to empower the son to embody a more generalized and deeper ethics, a self-sacrificial and universal compassion for humanity”

(No More Heroes 142). While it is true that the father draws from his memories about “old stories of courage and justice” (41) in an effort to (re)construct a moral order, I want to stress that this still demonstrates his existential choice of taking personal responsibility of shaping his identity as one of the good guys. His responsibility is to do so for the sake of his son and, by extension, the rest of the human community though he has difficulty sharing love, empathy, and compassion toward others. Due to this difficulty, however, the father’s death is necessary for the son to take advantage of the opportunity to join a new community. Ashley Kunsa agrees with both Wielenberg and DuMont, stating that “his death is made bearable only because the great sacrifice of his labored journey secures for the child a hopeful future” (62). Hope for the future mainly suggests that the child will be able to carry the fire with a new family so that they may all trek the road together without succumbing to moral depravity. Together, they can persist in the face of suffering and uncertainty though all life will inevitably end in death.

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CHAPTER 3

EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE ACCORDING TO CAMUS AND SARTRE

In Albert Camus’s introduction to The Myth of Sisyphus, he describes an existential crisis as a response to “the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering” (6). The habit he refers to is one’s daily, repetitive behavior that he or she acts on to continue existence. What prompts an existential crisis is the absurdity of living because life not only becomes monotonous, but it is also imbued with pain and suffering and inevitably leads to death regardless of what one does. Recognizing the meaninglessness and hopelessness of existence, and “in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land” (6).

Man longs for unity, a sense of cohesion, as a result of his awareness of life’s absurdity, but he will not find any. Suddenly, man realizes that life ends in death and that there is no afterlife waiting for him, leaving him with a sense of utter hopelessness. As a response to the crisis,

Camus explores two main existential choices, the first being suicide and the second continue living (6-7). Committing suicide is an understandable option because “it is confessing that life is too much for you or that you do not understand it” (5). A solution to the absurd, for some, is to renounce life completely. However, Camus’s central question asks why so many people continue living despite their awareness of the absurd.

Camus argues that the alternative to suicide is living life regardless of the hand one has been dealt. In Sisyphus’ case, the gods condemned him to push a boulder up a mountain, which,

9 once he reaches the top, rolls down again. He must repeat this task for all eternity, but “the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy” (123). Carrying onward even with life’s contradictions and hopelessness, Sisyphus embraces life’s absurdity and smiles at it as he willingly carries his burden over and over. Camus claims that, “tenacity and acumen are privileged spectators of this inhuman show in which absurdity, hope, and death carry on their dialogue” (Camus 10). Embracing absurdity and deliberately confronting life’s suffering and uncertainty emphasize the courage and strength that are necessary to continue living. Death will come regardless of what people do, but persistence even in the face of pain still makes life worth living. Suffering is relentless, so “one always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks” (123). In spite of his condemnation, Sisyphus rebels through happily accepting his burden and smiling at life’s absurdity, all the while knowing that he will die one day. Choosing life instead of suicide, therefore, is its own rebellion.

However, a Camusean perspective reaches its limit when discussing the concept of free will; whereas absurdity assumes that free will is an illusion and there is no possibility of choosing one’s lot in life, Sartre argues that free will is indeed real insofar as an individual can choose to behave in ways that create life’s meaning. In his famous claim that existence precedes essence, Sartre explains in Existentialism is a Humanism that “man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world--and defines himself afterwards--[...] Man is nothing else but that which he makes himself” (22). Since God does not exist, there is no predetermined path for man to fulfill; rather, he is born into the world without any inherent notions about morality or values.

Therefore, he experiences life without any guidance from God, which leaves him with total freedom, “alone and without excuse” (29), to explore and discover ways in which he must act in

10 the world. Through his actions, man creates his morals and values and also shapes his own identity. Life, therefore, is worthy of living because man chooses to behave in ways that imbue his life with meaning.

Man has to bear the responsibility of his own actions as a consequence of exercising his will to live, which causes him to experience anguish. He cannot only act and define himself for his own sake. Man’s responsibility extends beyond himself, “and when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men” (Sartre 23). In other words, that which man creates himself into being becomes a representation for what the entire human community should emulate. The anguish he feels results from bearing the burden of his own decisions and knowing that the rest of humankind will follow him by example, thus repeating similar actions in order to define themselves and create meaning. This responsibility requires man to acknowledge that he does not exist in complete isolation. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre defines “The Look” by explaining that “in order for me to be what I am, it suffices merely that the Other look at me”; the Other is another conscious being who becomes a reflection of the “looker’s” self (351). In other words, the Other forces the looker to realize that he or she is not the center of the world but rather an object of the Other’s gaze, thus “only the reflective consciousness has the self directly for an object” (349). Such self-reflection is crucial because it compels one to recognize whatever good qualities or flaws that he or she possesses. In bearing the burden of responsibility beyond one’s self, an individual must accept that others will look at him or her as he or she acts in the world that they all share.

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CHAPTER 4

EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND EXISTENTIAL CHOICE IN THE ROAD

In contrast to McCarthy’s previous works, The Road demonstrates the author’s navigation away from naturalism and exploration of science fiction. Arguably, the author creates a hybrid genre that incorporates elements of science-fiction into his naturalistic writing. Vereen

M. Bell defines McCarthy’s naturalism by noting the author’s respect for accuracy:

His scrupulous reproduction of detail (reflected in the precision of his language), his

casual command of the right names for things--for parts of things, for aspects of various

processes, and how things get done--his respect for the taxonomic specifiness of the

natural world, are like Joyce’s in that they give his work a deep cohesion that mere shape

and plot cannot. (39)

Through such acute attention to detail, McCarthy’s writing recreates the world with the utmost accuracy. At the same time, the author creates characters reacting to the environments they inhabit to show the ways that their base instincts drive them to behave in cruel and even barbaric ways. In Blood Meridian, for instance, McCarthy depicts characters confronting the hostilities of the vast and barren American West. Cooper explains that the author “depict[s] a world beyond the pale of civilization and beyond the reach of redemption” (No More Heroes 133) as Judge

Holden and the Glanton gang ruthlessly murder others as a response to their hostile environment.

McCarthy reduces his characters to baseness and moral depravity, remaining true to his naturalism as he describes the deserts they cross and the senseless slaughters they commit throughout their travels.

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Though the father and son in The Road face a similar wasteland to Blood Meridian, their landscape has been wiped out due to an unknown catastrophe that resulted in a famine and the protagonists’ confronting post-apocalyptic chaos, which places the novel in the science fiction genre. The man looks at his surroundings and only sees “the ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void” (11). The imagined future depicted in the novel’s setting illustrates a picture of the destroyed world with only a few remnants of the past to remind the father of what life was before the catastrophe. In science fiction, and particularly for this post-apocalyptic novel, characters experience a nostalgia for the past. Bill Hardwig analyzes

“trappings of culture and materialism” in The Road, explaining that “when faced with the erasure of our current culture, things become resonant with an at times nostalgic meaning for what is gone and at other times a poignant meaning of the expectation of a future that such things evoke”

(39). Relating to the father’s existential crisis, the man’s recollections of the world before its destruction point to his longing for a sense of unity and cohesion. Whenever the man sees something he recognizes, like a can of Coca-Cola or a mantelpiece in his childhood home, he remembers the cultural constructs and previous values that his culture once upheld; consequently, he experiences a melancholic nostalgia for the past, which he brings forth to his present as he informs his child that Coca-Cola is a “treat” (23) and that below the mantelpiece is where the man’s family hung their stockings during Christmas (26).

The world’s previous structures and values have been destroyed, leaving the father with the complete and total freedom to preserve his sets of values and morals. Arguably, the protagonists face what Cooper describes as

a world even bleaker (if possible) than the world of Blood Meridian, but the novel

nevertheless privileges the haunting obligation of ethical behavior, indicating that the

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darkest possible world may not be entirely bereft of people able to believe in human

goodness. (No More Heroes 133)

Hunger drives the characters to kill and eat each other, showing that survival and self- preservation take precedence over civilization and human goodness, yet there is a father and son refusing cannibalism and choosing to continue living in spite of the bleakness of their world.

Remembering when the famine worsened, the father narrates, “by then all stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes” (181). While self-preservation and survival drive both the cannibals and the protagonists onward, in terms of existential and ethical choice in the novel, McCarthy strongly suggests the possibility of enduring the end of the world without ever succumbing to such depravity. The duo strictly uphold a code that rejects cannibalism “no matter what […]. Because [they are] the good guys … and [they are] carrying the fire” (129). Exercising their freedom to construct their morals, which originate from the father’s memories, the protagonists consciously choose starvation over eating people in order to assert their identities as the good guys.

As a response to the horrors of famine and cannibalism, the mother’s consciousness of life’s absurdity drives her to refuse life altogether. Camus explains that “the mind’s deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity” (17). The mother yearns for unity and cohesion in the face of meaninglessness but knows that she will never achieve such things. Rather than entertaining the thought of living in post-apocalyptic chaos, the mother loses her will to live and says, “my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart” (57). Without God and without hope of an afterlife, she confronts life’s meaninglessness

14 as well as her powerlessness against absurdity. She expresses her existential crisis during her final argument with her husband, which shows her attempt to use reason against absurdity. She believes that survival is impossible as she questions her husband after listening to his claim that they are survivors; she asks, “what in God’s name are you talking about? We’re not survivors.

We’re the walking dead in a horror film” (55). For her, death has already arrived, so she wants to physically end her life before facing torture and pain. Surviving would mean that they have opportunities to persevere, but she tells her husband, “you cant protect us [...] You talk about taking a stand but there is no stand to take” (56-7). The senselessness of the family’s situation outweighs her will to live so much that she refuses life’s contradiction because it inevitably leads to death. However, the mother imagines a worse fate for her family, one in which she will be forced to witness her child’s suffering. Forcing her husband to imagine the future that awaits them as a consequence of their existence, she insists, “sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen” (56). Paradoxically, choosing life over suicide is equivalent to condemning her family to a slow, horrible death. The mother knows that, if discovered, her body will be violated, and her only child will lose his innocence before having knowledge that such an act could exist and be realized.

She will not bear the responsibility for her son’s suffering because she knows that choosing life over suicide will subject her child to atrocity. She confesses, “my heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so dont ask for sorrow now” (57). Her crisis intensifies as she recognizes her powerlessness against an environment that constantly threatens her and her family’s existence, and she vehemently argues that murdering her son and committing suicide are justifiable options, claiming “it’s the right thing to do” (56). She resents her husband and the

15 situation imposed upon her family, and “based on what they know about the world after the apocalypse, there is no reasonable response except suicide” (Noble 99). The senselessness of their situation, as a result, causes the wife to renounce life completely since she can no longer bear its burden.

The only alternative to suicide is to continue living no matter how difficult life is, and though life becomes repetitive, the father draws from his memories to preserve meaning through repetition. The environment is unforgiving, yet the father and son endure in the strictest

Camusean sense. Rejecting suicide signifies revolt and an affirmation of life because it means that life is indeed valuable and worth living. In the face of the absurd, “consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation [...] It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will” (Camus 55). Accepting life as it is and embracing absurdity drives the father and son forward even though suicide is tempting. Their purpose in life is not to understand why life is absurd but to continue living until the bitter end. Throughout the narrative, the pair repeat the same tasks: traveling the road, scavenging for food, seeking shelter, and hiding from blood cults. Comparing repetition in Beckett’s works to The Road, Fledderjohann explains that

“these repetitions suggest a surrendered compliance to the bleak nature of the speakers’ lives and a continuous attempt to resist the unrelenting harshness of their worlds” (50). The pair recognize the reality set before them in their barren and lifeless environment, yet they embrace life as it is and continue performing their habits just as Sisyphus carries his boulder throughout eternity.

More importantly, choosing to live allows the father to use recollections of his past so that he can create morals and values in the absence of social and cultural structures. Fledderjohann adds that the duo’s conversations repeating “ok” and “let’s go” “are all words and actions that gesture to a diminished past while being repeated with an eye towards what is to come” (50). Their

16 repetitions are imbued with meaning because they refer to a point in time when order and civilization still existed, so the man attempts to preserve consciousness through repetition. The man’s memories confer value and meaning on life; for instance, the pair finds the man’s childhood home where the father remembers “on cold winter nights when the electricity was out in a storm we would sit at the fire here, me and my sisters, doing our homework” (26). Though the boy will never be privy to such an experience, his father’s nostalgia brings forth memories of familial love and warmth. Simultaneously, the father reconstructs these same values by sharing these sentiments with his child. Their struggle in and of itself affirms life because they consistently seek ways to sustain their existence while preserving valuable remnants of the father’s past.

Choosing life over suicide signifies their acceptance of all of the disappointments that come along with it. In a random stroke of luck, they discover a bunker stocked with large stores of food and hidden from any predator. The father, however, decides not to remain there for more than a few days, “and gazed one more time at this tiny paradise trembling in the orange light from the heater and then he fell asleep” (150). It does not matter how many supplies or how much safety the bunker provides; leaving the “tiny paradise” indicates the man’s existential choice to confront and trek the road even though safety and comfort are readily at his disposal.

His decision symbolizes his acknowledgement of temporary satisfaction that randomly pauses misery because he knows that they need to literally and symbolically trek the road; stopping would be its own form of giving up on life because living means continuity and confrontation to all of its aspects. They endure no matter what comes their way, even if they will only be met with disappointment. The pair’s main destination, the coast, is a testament to life’s absurdity because they hoped for warmer climate but instead experience disappointment as they witness

17 before them a dark, gray ocean, a “Cold. Desolate. Birdless” beach (215). The beach symbolizes their confrontation with existential nothingness and a reminder that “death is there as the only reality” (Camus 57). Their destination is disappointing because it is no different from the darkness and bleakness that the duo experience on the road, which reminds them that there is no hope for anything better than what they have now nor is there hope in an afterlife. They have a decision to make, which is either to agree to remain part of this world or reject it through suicide.

They ultimately agree to continue traveling and living even after reaching their destination, showing that they do not give up despite their disappointment.

As a consequence of choosing to trek the road, however, the father undertakes the responsibility of murdering another to protect his son and thus experiences existential anguish. In the beginning of the novel, the man asserts that “he knew only that the child was his warrant”

(5). The man’s existential choice entails a commitment to ensuring his son’s survival and safety.

When a member of a cannibal cult discovers and threatens the boy in the woods, the father falls and “leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet. The [cannibal] fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead” (66). The father had a choice: kill or be killed, and he chooses the former. Killing the cannibal establishes the father’s character as one who will go to any lengths to ensure his son’s safety and survival even if it is at the expense of another human life, and “it is anguish pure and simple, of the kind experienced by all who have borne responsibilities” (Sartre, Existentialism

27). This responsibility is entirely his own, and he bears it with all of its weight while simultaneously preserving the value of human life. Sartre writes, “choosing to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose” (Existentialism 24). Through the man’s decision, he proves that he values his son’s life over anyone else’s.

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His paranoia and distrust, though obviously justified in the instance above, will prevent him from reaching out to other survivors.

To further exacerbate his anguish, the father becomes caught in a moral dilemma between keeping his child alive or killing him so that the boy would not suffer. While scavenging for food, the pair enter a house and open a hatch that leads to a basement full of half-eaten people; the group of cannibals who imprisoned those people begin making their way back to the house while the pair is still in it. This moment heightens the father’s existential anguish because their decision to live inevitably subjects the child to the horrors of torture and cannibalism. The father debates with himself, weighing the argument against killing his own son: “can you do it? When the time comes? […] Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing?” (114). The father asserts the value of the boy’s innocence and life through considering a mercy killing. In debating whether he should kill his own child, the father experiences anguish over such a cruel reality. Such a decision is one in which only he will be responsible for, but alas, he does not have enough strength to move forward with it, and the pair manages to escape. Cooper explains that

While revelations of the father’s interior world often reveal his anguish over his own

corruption, or his suicidal despair, such revelations also expose the raw courage the man

exhibits as he attempts a journey fraught with horrific danger in order to forge the

possibility for a future out of an apocalyptic waste. (No More Heroes 139)

When Cooper mentions “corruption,” she refers to “the man’s recognition of a hidden and monstrous potential within himself,” which is his capacity to murder his son (139). What heightens the man’s anguish is his struggle to protect his child from becoming a victim and his coming to terms with a part of himself that must murder that which he has committed his life to.

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Nevertheless, the father’s decision to push forward and eventually escape from danger shows his incorruptible love and care for the boy, thus asserting his responsibility as a father as well as his decision to live no matter what comes their way.

Thus, the father must bear the burden of his decision to live because it entails making decisions for the sake of survival, explaining the father’s moral ambiguity. Sartre explains

“anguish” as a response to such responsibility, for the man is the only one accountable for his actions (27). As the father’s paranoia and distrust are confirmed, he is burdened with the choice of abandoning those who are impossible to save. On the one hand, the father wants to assert that they are the good guys, but on the other hand, he knows that this endeavor is not realistically achievable. For example, the pair discover partially eaten people enslaved in a basement:

Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide,

shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the

hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous. [... The man]

stood and got hold of the door and swung it over and let it slam down … (110-11)

Dismembered and physically helpless, the victims are impossible to save. The father’s action, as difficult as it is to commit, reveals that he has no choice but to abandon them in order to prevent becoming victims themselves. Survival and self-preservation drive him to move forward even though the man and boy know that the victims will continue being tortured and will be slowly cannibalized. As morally ambiguous as the father’s character seems, the reality of their circumstances forces him to contradict the “old stories of courage and justice” (41) and the good guy code because it is the only way they will survive. Life in the post-apocalypse requires the father’s recognition of his own physical limits and the realization that he cannot help others even if he wants to.

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Other instances of abandoning others, especially those whom the pair can indeed help, further reveal the father’s struggle to uphold the good guy code. His character prioritizes his son’s survival above his own and anyone else’s, showing that his choice to continue living depends upon his commitment to protect and provide for his child. However, abandoning others, such as the thief who robs the duo at the beach, reveals that the father lives solely for his son instead of expressing empathy and compassion toward the rest of the human community.

Alluding to the Old Testament, McCarthy depicts the father seeking justice through demanding an “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (The New King James Version, Exodus 21:24). When they confront the thief, the father forces the robber to strip. Begging, “[the thief] stood there holding himself” and pleading, “don’t do this, man … Come on, man. I’ll die,” to which the father coldly responds, “I’m going to leave you the way you left us” (257). On the one hand, the man wants to ensure that he and the boy have enough supplies to live, justifying this action; on the other hand, the father’s motivations also show he desires revenge, so he symbolically cannibalizes the thief and abandons him. Forcing the thief to strip is not what the father ought to do to preserve life, so his responsibility toward humankind falls short. Through deliberately abandoning the thief, the man indirectly kills him, which shows the father’s refusal to acknowledge that “man finds himself in a complex social situation in which he himself is committed, and by his choices commits all mankind, and he cannot avoid choosing” (Sartre, Existentialism 45). However, the father demonstrates his difficulty to uphold the same morals and values: to help others and be the good guy, and he condemns the survivor to death. This exercise of free will shows the father’s commitment and responsibility to his son and no one else.

Despite these moral ambiguities, McCarthy suggests that existential choice is not just to choose life over suicide but to also share tender and loving moments with his son for as long as it

21 is possible to do so. Acting in such a way that encourages caritas, the father’s character affirms life through his love for his only child. In doing so, the father symbolically carries the fire as he shares remnants of his past with his son. While rummaging for supplies, the man reaches into a vending machine from which “he withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca-Cola …

[The boy] sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said … You have some, Papa … [The father] took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here”

(23). Throughout the narrative, the pair trek the road, enduring harsh weather conditions and hiding from blood cults, yet they manage to share simple moments like these to illustrate the possibility of expressing love and compassion even when surrounded by chaos. This scene also reminds readers that the father draws from his past and extends it to the present in an effort to preserve the value of filial warmth and tenderness. Since the father suffers from poor health and his death is imminent, the boy will carry these values onward, thus preserving goodness for as long as possible. Though the man fails to express compassion toward other survivors, his son can still carry the fire through “extending that meaning to the future” out of his free will

(Fledderjohann 50). While the man has the boy, he commits himself to ensure his son’s survival and express love until the man’s death. Through these moments, the father gives value and meaning throughout their journey together.

Like Sisyphus, the pair repeat the same tasks, but they are also like Prometheus because the repetition of carrying the fire symbolizes that they are not only refusing to give up on life but also carrying a sense of hope that human goodness can survive. This emphasizes the father’s attempt to uphold the good guy code because “carrying the fire and being a good guy are closely related: only good guys carry the fire” (Wielenberg 5). During the father’s final moments alive, the boy pleads to go with his father, meaning he wants to die, but the man insists, “you [the son]

22 need to go on… I cant go with you. You need to keep going. You don’t know what might be down the road. We were always lucky. You’ll be lucky again. You’ll see. Just go. It’s all right”

(278). Encouraging his son to live, the father’s dying wish is an affirmation of life even though the pair have endured unbearable suffering throughout their time on the road. The father’s insistence echoes Camus’s claim that “the real effort is to stay there, rather, in so far as possible”

(10). The boy’s only option is to keep going just as they always have in the hopes that luck will find its way to him. This luck does not necessarily imply that “there exists a transcendent God”

(107) that will save the boy, as Noble has contended by acknowledging the new family’s appearance at the end of the novel as a deus ex machina. Rather, the father’s insistence encourages an existential choice to affirm life and see what it may hold for the boy, and the only way the child will ever know what else is down the road is if he continues living. Though the man is acutely aware that his son will be alone, “the father’s inability to shoot the boy to preserve his innocence signifies his acceptance of the value and dangers of physical existence”

(DuMont 65). This is what drives the fire motif further as it represents persistence in the face of hostility and the preservation of goodness. The son can continue living so that he may share the fire with other good guys. Since the man shares memories of familial love and warmth with his child, the man preserves meaning and thus fulfills his responsibility and commitment to his son.

In turn, the boy will carry the fire like Prometheus through sharing love and compassion toward others, therefore fulfilling his responsibility toward humankind.

Undertaking that responsibility requires empathy, which the father often lacks, but the boy’s ability to relate to others proves his potential for joining a community, which will allow him to carry the fire. The boy recognizes other travelers’ fear and vulnerability when he tells his father that “[the thief at the beach] was just hungry ... He’s so scared, Papa,” showing the child

23 expresses empathy and compassion even though the thief wronged them (259). Analyzing a scene in which the pair look at their reflections in a mirror, Euan Gallivan explains, “the boy, in recognizing both the subjective and objective aspects of the mirror image, draws attention to the fact that the other travelers on the road are merely mirror images of themselves” (104). This refers to Schopenhauer’s ethics that express an individual’s potential for empathy stems from one’s ability to perceive oneself in others. Consequently, the individual becomes aware of his subjective experience and identifies that same experience in another person. Seeing oneself mirrored in another opens the possibility of extending caritas and therefore carrying the fire.

Though Gallivan used Schopenhauer’s ethics to analyze the boy’s identification with those whom he encounters, Sartre’s “The Look” also applies here as he explains “I am for myself only as I am a pure reference to the Other,” which such recognition can only be achieved if the Other looks at him (Being 349). Through this “look,” the boy perceives his own vulnerability and fear in the other travelers whereas his father can only perceive a crime inflicted upon them, causing him intense worry and anger. The child possesses greater potential to create a community, one in which empathy, compassion, and love could be perceived when others “look” at him. Since the boy wants to be a good guy, he also wants to share their code with others so that the rest of mankind could (perhaps) mimic the boy, thus leaving hope that human goodness can survive for as long as possible.

Clearly, the child wants to reach out to others, showing his strong belief in upholding another major part of their good guy code: “help others” (Wielenberg 5). As Sartre claims, “I am therefore responsible for myself and for everyone else, and I am fashioning a certain image of man as I choose him to be” (Existentialism 25). Through the boy’s desire to share love and compassion toward others, such as begging his father to share their food with the old traveler

24 who first identifies himself as Ely or pleading with his father not to harm the thief at the beach, he tries asserting his identity as a good guy. He proves the importance of taking responsibility beyond the individual and extending it toward a community. Indeed, the boy looks for his father’s approval for allowing the old traveler to stay with them, but the father sternly responds,

“I know what the question is, the man said. The answer is no.” To which the son asks, “What’s the question?” The father answers, “Can we keep him. We cant” (164). Rejecting the opportunity to form a community shows that the father’s paranoia and distrust have corrupted him because he cannot completely uphold the very code that he teaches his son. Therefore, he cannot take responsibility for the rest of humankind, which makes his death necessary if the son wants to continue carrying the fire.

Extending caritas to the rest of the human community is only possible once the father dies. Sharing love and compassion is essential for carrying the fire, and it necessitates the father’s death since “the child is unable to connect with other good guys as long as his father is alive” (Wielenberg 10). Just three days after the father’s death, a family approaches the boy.

Though the child is rightfully hesitant to join them, the “veteran of old skirmishes” (281) offers the boy an ultimatum: “you got two choices here. There was some discussion about whether to even come after you at all. You can stay here with your papa and die or you can go with me”

(283). Such an opportunity is only possible because the boy’s father has died and can no longer control whether he can join others or not. The veteran, too, takes a risk in offering the boy a place in his family since it means stretching whatever resources they have to feed yet another person. Nonetheless, the man’s ultimatum shows a willingness to extend caritas toward the child even though he does not necessarily feel an obligation to do so. The veteran takes on the responsibility that the boy’s father could not, and through this conscious decision, the veteran

25 mirrors the boy’s empathy and compassion. The father’s death, then, symbolizes an opportunity to move beyond individual responsibility and extend it to the rest of the human community.

Though McCarthy purposely leaves the new family’s trustworthiness and goodness ambiguous, there is evidence that strongly suggests that the new family members are good guys.

Before finally deciding to join the family, the boy asks, “how do I know you’re one of the good guys?” To which the veteran answers, “You don’t. You’ll have to take a shot” (283). At this moment, the child experiences total freedom to choose whether to join the family or not. Since

God does not exist, man is free, but Sartre defines freedom as a condemnation, “condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does” (Existentialism 29). Without his father, the child must decide the path he wants to lead for himself. In doing so, the boy must take responsibility for his own actions even though the family may or may not help him survive. His responsibility will burden him because he must carry the fire by sharing love and compassion beyond himself. More importantly, his choice is also contingent upon recognizing whether the family are good guys, and it is not until the boy asks, “you dont eat people,” that he realizes that the family is not like the blood cults he has witnessed before since they have children, one of which is “about [the boy’s] age” (284). The boy’s conversation with the veteran implies that the child recognizes the family members as good guys who not only resist cannibalism but also welcome him to their group: “No. We dont eat people.” The boy asks, almost in disbelief, “and I can go with you?”

(284). “The Look” takes place once more because the family mirrors the child’s morals and values, which makes joining them all the more appealing. Essentially, the new family upholds the code to help others, which the father attempted but ultimately failed to uphold.

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The child’s commitment to communicate with his father after the man’s death shows that the boy sustains the memory of his father, which therefore suggests he remembers the morals and values that the man shared with the boy. Through this communication, the boy carries the fire.

After joining his new family, “[the mother] would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget”

(286). Therefore, the boy becomes “the best guy” (279) through his responsibility to uphold the good guy code and his decision to maintain a relationship with his father even after the man’s death. Although DeCoste claims that “again, we see born of their love for each other a faith in a future for the boy, and for the father, that extends beyond the latter’s death” (85), the evidence serves to the contrary and actually lends itself more to atheistic existentialism. In his critique of

Christian existentialists, Chestov and Kierkegaard, Camus argues,

Through an odd reasoning, starting out from the absurd over the ruins of reason, in a

closed universe limited to the human, they deify what crushes them and find reason to

hope in what impoverishes them. That forced hope is religious in all of them. (32)

Absurdity, as Camus observes, is deified simply because man has no other way to explain life’s contradictions, suffering, or even luck in the boy’s case. The only way to continue living is through believing in an afterlife, which would somehow justify living a life imbued with pain and constant suffering. Without a doubt, McCarthy creates tensions between Christian existentialism and atheistic existentialism. On the one hand, the child’s communication with his father is religious because it resembles prayer and therefore hints at his belief in a higher power, but on the other hand, the child’s insistence on carrying the fire and joining a new family shows his willingness to embrace life as it is without any notions or expectations of divine providence.

The boy may have some notion of what God is, but there is very little evidence, and even this

27 does not mean that he actually believes in a higher power; if anything, the boy has accepted life’s absurdity without hoping for an afterlife. He only knows the two options that the veteran informed him about: death or joining the veteran’s family. The latter decision demonstrates the boy’s affirmation of life in addition to his responsibility to extend love and compassion toward a community, not faith in a higher power. Furthermore, he clearly has difficulty communicating with “God” because he only had his father, a physical person whom the boy knows for certain existed, so the child prefers to speak directly to his father instead. Through this conscious decision, the boy keeps his promise to his father, solidifying his identity as the best guy and maintaining a relationship with his father, so “the point is that what we call ‘God’ or ‘Spirit’ could actually emerge from the communal bonds that emerge between people when they simply talk to each other” (DuMont 65). Indeed, the boy’s conversations with his deceased father maintain their relationship, which in turn, enable him to create relationships with his newfound family.

In the novel’s final and enigmatic passage, the father’s memory of a trout swimming in a river reminds readers of life’s absurdity as the inevitable outcome of all living things will always end in death.

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains ... Polished and muscular and

torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its

becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right

again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they

hummed of mystery. (McCarthy 287)

The passage begins with beautiful and seemingly hopeful imagery as the father/narrator describes life listlessly flowing along a stream. The “maps of the world in its becoming” suggest

28 a time when the world had not yet been obliterated by catastrophe. The significance of such a description is not to illustrate some vague hope in reversing the apocalypse or even the hope in an afterlife since the narrator admits that those same “maps and mazes [are] a thing which could not be put back.” According to DuMont, “the expressive act notes and accepts our temporal and mortal existence; like the fish’s fins wimpling in the flow, the speaker’s voice is audible (or visible on the page) because it is a physical thing that will eventually fade into its surroundings”

(57). Camus rejected the idea of maintaining false and illusive hope since there is no way of knowing whether God’s existence or the afterlife is real; he succinctly states, “I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone” (40). The novel’s final passage illuminates life’s absurdity because it will always end in death. Even though the child has joined a new family, the large space between this scene and the final passage signify that his story stopped there, strongly implying that he and the family will all die, but at the very least, they have each other and will carry on as long as possible, for “it is a matter of living in that state of the absurd” that gives life meaning (Camus 40).

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

All life will inevitably end, but this knowledge leaves individuals free to choose life instead of renouncing it completely. Choosing to live is not just for its own sake; this existential choice is also an opportunity to consciously decide how to act in the world. However, readers must bear in mind that exercising free will entails anguish because individuals carry the burden of responsibility for themselves and humankind. The Road posits that, due to God’s non- existence, the protagonists must determine their life’s meaning through their actions, which is to share love and compassion instead of succumbing to cannibalism.

Though the world’s previous social and cultural structures no longer exist to perpetuate morals and values of human life and compassion, the father draws from memories of his experiences with familial love and warmth to imbue his actions with meaning. He shares these experiences with his child in addition to ensuring the boy’s survival because, despite the risks involved, allowing the boy to survive is a means of preserving the father’s consciousness. The boy’s potential for extending empathy, compassion, and love toward the human community demonstrates that he carries the fire through preserving the meaning of his father’s memories.

Willfully joining the new family, the boy exercises his freedom to act however he chooses, and he chooses to perpetuate the goodness of humanity even though all life ends in death, and there will be no afterlife waiting for him. The enigmatic passage in the end comes from the father’s memory, a memory that describes a point in time when the world was still being shaped, not destroyed. However, the memory is a stark contrast from the lifeless environment vividly described throughout the narrative, so it is a reminder that “all things of grace and beauty have a

30 common provenance in pain” (54). While that pain results from life’s suffering and its end in death without the hope of an afterlife, saying “yes” to life is a revolt against absurdity because individuals can still create meaning and live as long as possible in spite of the inevitable outcome.

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