UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI

Pedagogická fakulta

Ústav cizích jazyků

Analysis and Comparison of Two Dystopian – The Running Man and The Road

diplomová práce

Bc. Martin Kirschbaum

Mgr. Petr Anténe, Ph.D.

Olomouc, 2019

Abstract

This diploma thesis analyzes and compares two dystopian novels by (The Running Man) and Cormac McCarthy (The Road). With emerging as one of the most popular literary genres among pupils, the author then applies gained knowledge in the creation of meaningful English lesson plans. At the same time, the author puts special emphasis on the themes such as modern technology or humanity, also reflected in the lesson plans created.

Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracoval sám s využitím uvedených pramenů a literatury.

V Olomouci dne 15. 6. 2019 …………………………………. (vlastnoruční podpis)

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor, Mr. Petr Anténe Ph.D., for his guidance and patience throughout the entire process. I would also like to thank my entire family for supporting me during my entire studies, especially during the last several months.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 6 1. Introduction to The Running Man ...... 8 1.1. Why did write books as Richard Bachman? ...... 9 1.2. What inspired Bachman to write such an unorthodox story? ...... 11 1.3. Air pollution as an efficient way of reducing population ...... 13 2. Introduction to The Road ...... 15 3. Different pace in novels in which characters face a similar dilemma ...... 18 3.1. Survival novels in which characters shape attitude ...... 19 3.2. Where are we heading to with our consumption and hard-to-please society? ...... 24 3.3. Distinguishing the good from the bad ...... 27 3.4. Do the novels end on a positive note? ...... 29 4. Lesson plans ...... 34 4.1. Lesson plan based on The Running Man ...... 36 4.2. Lesson plan based on The Road ...... 45 Conclusion ...... 53 Bibliography ...... 55 Anotace ...... 57 Resumé ...... 58

Introduction

In George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four, the main character, Winston Smith, represents a middle-class citizen fighting against all odds. Citizens were constantly monitored and even encouraged to turn in any family member should they happen to rebel against the Party, giving citizens such as Winston Smith a marginal chance to lead a decent life. Orwell applied a psychological phenomenon known as the Stockholm Syndrome. By means of establishing a hostile environment, he used humiliation and fear with the aim of taking out human’s identity.

Such novels tend to expose the worst-case scenario of often not so distant future. Authors focus on the exercise of power, potential impact of high-tech on our everyday life or the mentioned suppression of human upside. extend trends in the present day to a fantastic extreme, however, they remain recognizable as projections of a current situation of which they therefore act as a critique, a wake-up call to what is going on around us or what might happen moving forward.1

Since such stories can explore topics ranging from the lack of water to a reality show gone wrong, dystopian fiction has become a staple genre for teenagers and young adults. In fact, teenagers are showing consistent interest in the variety of possible scenarios for the future, with the best-selling leading the charge. Children are particularly attracted to ‗‘what ifs‘‘. 2 What if the earth ran out of water? What if love was declared a dangerous disease? While some of these seem more likely than others, teenagers are attracted to the fantasy in as well as uncertainty to how it all plays out.

If nothing else, dystopian stories make young readers think about the current or potential issues while using their own imagination. The popularity of the dystopian continues to rise with Divergent, The Maze Runner or Legend, each hitting the bestseller list. Tahereh Mafi, author of the bestselling Shatter Me series, sums it up well: ―I think that‘s what makes it such a safe place for young people to explore their burgeoning understanding of darkness in the world. The realization that there is, in fact, evil in the world is a realization that‘s so unique to that coming-of age experience—it makes dystopian novels evergreen. There will

1FIDDES, Paul. Dystopia, Utopia, and Millennium: Competing Images of Presence in an Anxious World, p. 7 2 SPRYNGEN, Karen. Apocalypse now: Teens turn to dystopian novels, p. 22

6 forever and ever be young people growing up and grappling with the harsh realities of the world.‖3

Knowing youngsters react well to reading such texts, teachers may take advantage of the current trend in order to refine pupils’ reading and overall language skills. Thus, the methodological part of this thesis puts emphasis on creating suitable lesson plans to work with extracts from the dystopian novels —The Running Man by Richard Bachman and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

By using those possibly simplified texts, pupils can learn more about media education, which presents a growing need across the entire school curriculum. Additionally, pupils would improve variety of not only literacy skills when working with a text they should feel comfortable with.

The theoretical part takes a general-to-specific approach to the topic of analyzing those previously mentioned dystopias. In addition to that, the comparison of the two dystopias should reveal an intriguing insight into the genre of dystopia, exploring various themes and features behind the ever so popular writers in Richard Bachman and Cormac McCarthy. Hardly any books are as gloomy as The Road. However, Richard Bachman in his The Running Man takes a more fast-paced and Orwellian approach, which should only make for an interesting analysis and comparison of these two dystopian novels.

3 BOOSE, Greg. Are Dystopian Novels Here to Stay?, p. 76

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1. Introduction to The Running Man

Written back in the early 1970s, Bachman’s The Running Man is reminiscent of various fiction and non-fiction. Its most direct literary ancestors are clearly George Orwell’s genre- defining Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. 4 In fact, Bachman applied similar conventions and techniques, using propaganda or technology as a tool to take control. In addition to that, Orwell and King both used a dialogue between the protagonist and a member of the party in charge to demystify and interrogate structures of power.

The Running Man is fast-paced right from the beginning. Unnecessary details are omitted. The reader does not learn much about the main character and his life prior to entering The Running Man show. The sense of urgency is on the display right away with repeating chapter headings, starting with ‗‘Minus 100/and COUNTING…., eventually reaching ‗‘Minus 000…‘‘

When it comes to the story, the protagonist Ben Richards certainly should not have faced such an absurd scenario he was dealing with. Unable to afford medicine for his daughter, Richards desperately looks for options. As a second-class citizen to put it lightly, he ultimately did not have much of a choice apart from trying out for the Running Man, the Network’s most dangerous and at the same time most profitable show. The show broadcasts contestants in their improbable attempt to beat the odds – nobody lasted longer than eight days before Richards’ entering the show. The longer Richards manage to survive, the more he (or his family) gets paid. And if he somehow made it for thirty straight days, he would receive one billion dollars.

As unlikely as it sounds, facing Hunters who were trained to kill with citizens seeking relevant information to help locate contestants location, Richards did not fall short of making an impression early on. He took things in his stride and was not afraid to stick up for himself and his family. It looked as if Richards enjoyed toying with cops and Network representatives in charge. He pushed their buttons to the maximum. Richards was certainly confident in his

4TEXTER W., Douglas. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Dystopia": The Culture Industry's Neutralization of Stephen King's The Running Man, p. 43

8 abilities almost to the degree that he was convinced he would be one step ahead of them most of the time. And it was not far away from the truth. With the help of fellow oppressed citizens, Amelia Williams as his hostage and a bit of luck, Richards made it to the nearest airport. After a lengthy standoff, Richards managed to bluff his way past Evan McCone, the lead hunter, on the board of a plane pretending to carry dangerous explosives.

At first, Richards is surprised after being offered a job to become the lead of Hunters. He almost acts as if he inclines to take the job, however, Killian, the creator of The Running Man, also informs him that his wife had been brutally murdered before Richards first appeared on the Running man. After having put some thought into it, Richards eventually feigns to accept the offer, but soon kills McCone. Richards is shot and mortally wounded, too, though. With nothing else to lose, and one might argue that Richards was a dead man all the way through, Richards decides to do the unthinkable – flying the airplane into a skyscraper, the building of The Running Man show, killing Killian in the process.

Its tanks were still better than a quarter full. Its speed was slightly over five hundred miles an hour. Its running lights blinked on and off, and for just a moment, an insane moment of total surprise and horror and disbelief, he (Killian) could see Richards staring out at him. His face smeared with blood, his black eyes burning like the eyes of a demon. Richards was grinning. And giving him the finger. ‘–Jesus–‘ was all Killian had time to get out. The explosion was tremendous, lighting up 5 the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away.

The novel concludes with a disastrous scene, strongly and prophetically calling 9/11 horrors. At the end of the day, Ben Richards decided to send a message and tried to eliminate the cause of a problem.

1.1. Why did Stephen King write books as Richard Bachman?

To fully comprehend the significance of Stephen King’s figure, along with differing cultural contexts in which The Running Man was written, analyzing a story behind King’s pen name serves as a tool to start with. King himself does not provide a shrewd insight into sticking with his pen name back in the day. Nevertheless, the young author had a feeling that publishing business was not ready for more than one book per author a year.6 Such notion has

5 BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man (Great Britain: New English Library, 1983), p. 241. 6 KING, Stephen. Frequently Asked Questions. [online] Available at: https://www.stephenking.com/faq.html

9 been generally disproved by now. Still, majority of authors manage to produce one book in the course of a year with some of them publishing a book every two years. 7 Kings cites Ed McBain or Danielle Steel as novelists who often publish two or more books in a year. In fact, Ed McBain inspired him to adopt the Richard Bachman name so that King could write two books in a year. The name was originally derived from a combination of Donald E. Westlake’s pen name Richard Stark, and the Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive.8 And King put it together by chance.

Having said that, there is another angle to that. As King is generally associated with the genre of horror, his ‗‘dark side‘‘ differs significantly. Apart from , King’s work prior to 1985 is not generally regarded as horror stories, at least not from a traditional perspective.9 Both and are considered thrillers about men who in their desperate attempt to seek justice turn to violent behavior. The Running Man along with are dystopian novels – The Long Walk is set in an alternative present while The Running Man describes futuristic United States in the midst of an economic crisis.

As King was flying under the radar a bit, he published some of the most politically subversive works of his career,10 which include Rage, The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981) or Thinner (1984). After publishing (1989), King used his pen name twice – for (1996) and (2007). It was only a matter of time when his little trick would eventually be discovered, though. As King explains himself, you can write using different names but you cannot really shift from your writing style. 11

Over time, it dawned on several critics that King’s/Bachman’s work must have been written by one man only. And it was Stephen P. Brown, a writer and mystery specialist, who helped to reveal King’s undercover. 12 With growing suspicion, Brown drove to the Library of Congress to check copyrights on Bachman’s books. Except for one, all were in the name of Kirby McCauley, King’s agent.13 Instead of dissimulating response, Brown received a phone

7 KING, Stephen. Frequently Asked Questions.[online] Available at: https://www.stephenking.com/faq.html 8MANN. I.C. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 197 9MANN. I.C. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 198 10MANN. I.C. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 197 11 KING, Stephen. Frequently Asked Questions.[online] Available at: https://www.stephenking.com/faq.html 12P. BROWN, Stephen. Steven King shining through. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/04/09/steven-king-shining-through/eaf662da-e9eb- 4aba-9eb9-217826684ab6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fa59f8be5a4d 13P. BROWN, Stephen. Steven King shining through. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/04/09/steven-king-shining-through/eaf662da-e9eb- 4aba-9eb9-217826684ab6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fa59f8be5a4d

10 call from the King himself. With a distinctive writing style, growing suspicion and Bachman’s enormous success with Thinner, King faced the inevitable. "Before Thinner, were dropping down a well. I get 50 or 60 fan letters a week, more if there's a movie or the paperback of something out. Bachman was getting two letters a month. I never thought much about working at keeping Bachman a secret. I didn't have to. But when 'Thinner' came out, it was like carrying your groceries home in a shopping bag in the rain. Gradually the bag softens and begins to tear. Things start falling out." King himself explains.14

1.2. What inspired Bachman to write such an unorthodox story?

As The Running Man takes place in mid 2020s, Bachman depicts American society as economically fractured with the majority of the population unemployed. Middle-class barely exists – the rich enjoy their luxurious lives while the rest struggles on a day-to-day basis. The rich are mostly or exclusively employed by the Network – a monopolistic provider of absurd TV entertainment highlighted by the mandatory Free-Vee in every household. Not surprisingly, The Running Man was likely inspired by the mind-boggling TV shows which started to be very popular with the American audience in the 1970s. Another incentive for Bachman to write the book may have come from the frontlines of the Vietnam Wars. 15As a matter of fact, it could have been a combination of both. At any rate, at the time Bachman was writing his novel, Americans were in the midst of illegal and bloody operations in Laos and Cambodia, and the year ended with pounding North Vietnam. Daniel C. Hallin argues that the war in Vietnam left the United States deeply divided.

Furthermore, the American news media played a major role for the very first time; in fact, it was the first televised war. The words of Richard Nixon, the US president back then, sums it well: In each night's TV news and each morning's paper the war was reported battle by battle, but little or no sense of the underlying purpose of the fighting was conveyed. Eventually this contributed to the impression that we were fighting in military and moral quicksand, rather than toward an important and worthwhile objective. More than ever before, television showed the terrible human suffering and sacrifice of war. Whatever the intention behind such

14P. BROWN, Stephen. Steven King shining through. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/04/09/steven-king-shining-through/eaf662da-e9eb- 4aba-9eb9-217826684ab6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fa59f8be5a4d 15 MANN. I.C. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 201

11 relentless and literal reporting of the war, the result was a serious demoralization of the home front, raising the question whether America would ever again be able to fight an enemy abroad with unity and strength of purpose at home.16

As a result, millions of Americans were exposed to dreadful images; men severely injured, calling for help or dead already. Daily news was literally all over it. Thus, it is not out of the question to imagine that Bachman was at the same time inspired by and disgusted withthe images stripped of their meaning and turned into a grotesque form of family entertainment,17 resulting in his effort to create a fast-moving story criticizing such actions taking place. However, Bachman arguably was not concerned with the war itself. Instead, he criticized moral values or social unfairness in the 1970s. The Vietnam War served indirectly as a tool to deliver the message Bachman wanted to. Citizens were suffering back home, too. Bachman paid special attention to policemen and officers who should represent the law, and certainly not use it to their advantage, own benefits or pleasure. In the novel, Bachman repeatedly highlights officers as violent, if not bloodthirsty while looking down on anybody ‗below their class level‘.

The cop gave him back his card. ‘They’ll kick it soft again. How smart do you talk with holes in your head, sonny?’ ‘Just about as smart as you talk without that gun on your leg and your pants down around your ankles,’ Richards said, still smiling. ‘Want to try it?’ For a moment he though the cop was going to swing at him. ‘They’ll fix you,’ the cop said. ‘You’ll do some walking on your knees before you’re done.’ The cop swaggered over to three new arrivals and demanded to see their cards. The man ahead of Richards turned around. He had a nervous, unhappy face and curly hair that came down in a widow’s peak. ‘Say you don’t want to antagonize them, fella. They’ve got a grapevine.’18

The term ‘maggot’ also appeared repeatedly in the novel – possibly to demonstrate the superior position of policemen or Network employees.

‘You like turning them back, don’t you?’ Richards asked. ‘It really give you a charge, doesn’t it?’ ‘You want to go downtown, maggot?’19

16 D.C, HALLIN. The Uncensored War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 3 17I.C, MANN. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 202 18KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 10 19KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 9

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Taking into account the cultural context, Bachman most likely criticized several acts of injustice having occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, where officers of law demonstrated their power in a way they should not have. On February 8, 1968, violence broke out on the campus of South Carolina State. Patrolmen opened fire on protesters against racial separation, killing three and injuring twenty-seven. 20 On May 4, 1970, the group of Kent State students protesting the Vietnam War numbered around 500. Tension was rising with rocks being thrown. Eventually, National Guard decided to fire, killing four students in the attack.21 Those are just a few examples of police brutality that led to the beginning of anti-authoritarian sentiments in the US. 22

A parallel can also be specifically found in The Running Man. As Richards flies from NYC to Boston, he finds himself on the verge of being caught, eventually setting off an exposition in the basement that kills five police officers. Not knowing what to do, he meets with Bradley Throckmorton, a black member of a family living on the periphery. Bradley turns out to be both resourceful and willing to help Richards. Unlike Network representatives and upper class citizens, Bradley showed character by not turning Richards in. He resisted earning a thousand dollars since his beliefs were on the line with Richards’, while being familiar with police brutality himself. Not only does he help him to get past a security checkpoint in Manchester, Bradley also provides him with re-mailing labels so that the Network would not directly track Richards by the postmark on his regular videotapes. Bradley was well aware of what was at stakes, helping a man to fight against the system. Though not specifically stated, Bachman towards the end implies that Bradley had been murdered for having helped Richards on the move. Bradley became a victim of racial dissent as did those students and protesters in South Carolina or Kent State.

1.3. Air pollution as an efficient way of reducing population

Interestingly enough, Richards learned from Bradley about the air pollution which was deliberately on a much higher scale than recommended.

20 TOTH, Reid C. The Orangeburg Massacre: A Case Study of the Influence of Social Phenomena on Historical Recollection, p. 471 21WARREN J., Beverly. Kent State Beyond The Shootings: Journey of The Wounded Healer, p. 268 22I.C, MANN. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger, p. 203

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‘Now the pollution count in Boston is twenty on a good day. That’s like smoking four packs of cigarettes a day just breathing. On a bad day it gets up as high as forty-two. Old dudes drop dead all over town. Asthma goes on the death certificate. But it’s the air, the air, the air. And they’re pouring it out just as fast as they can, big smokestacks going twenty- four hours a day. The big boys like it that way. ‘Those two-hundred dollar nose filters aren’t worth shit. They’re just two pieces of screen with a little piece of mentholated cotton between them. That’s all. The only good ones are from General Atomics. The only ones who can afford them are the big boys. They gave us the Free-Vee to keep us off the streets so we can breathe ourselves to death without making any trouble. How do you like that? The cheapest G-A nose filter on the market goes for six thousand New Dollars. We made one for Stacey for ten bucks from that book. We used an atomic nugget the size of the moon on your fingernail. Got it out of a hearing aid we bought in a hockshop for seven bucks. How do you like that?’ Richards said nothing. He was speechless. When Cassie boots off, you think they’ll put cancer on the death certificate? Shit. They’ll put asthma. Else somebody might get scared. Somebody might kife a library card and find out lung cancer is up seven hundred percent since 2015.’23

Just in the middle frame of the extract, Richards learns that Free-Vee exists only as a propaganda to distract the public from what is really happening. What is really frightening is the fact that the people in charge control population reduction without investing heavily, and likely with only a handful people being aware of those failures. Not taking anything away from it, the next generations would likely adjust to the lack of oxygen as suggested towards the end of the novel.

Eventually the poor would adapt, mutate. Their lungs would produce their own filtration system in ten thousand years or in fifty thousand, and they would rise up, rip out the artificial filters and watch their owners flop and kick and drum their lives away, drowning in an atmosphere where oxygen played only a minor part…24

Still, it suggests that had Richards survived for three or more weeks, his wife and daughter had not been murdered, and the money had been sent to his wife and daughter, it would have eliminated the symptoms for quite some time, but not the problem. Had he made it all the way through, his family may have led a normal life, provided the responsible ones would have let them, but the society would still suffer and nothing would change in the foreseeable future. Combination of all-powerful police with the Network behind their back and air pollution means that the system would not be overthrown easily.

23KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 100-101 24KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 224-225

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2. Introduction to The Road

After waking up, the father and son almost immediately set off in their hope of finding a better place and other ‘good guys’. The earth is no longer the place it once used to be. Dead silence defines this new world. Buildings have been destroyed. Nature is quiet and everything else appears to be dark. Those who survived cannot trust anyone. And they certainly cannot be sure if there will be tomorrow. Such apocalyptic scenario is pictured by Cormac McCarthy in The Road. And he certainly succeeded in getting readers’ attention. After all, people have been fascinated for ages with the question of what would happen and how the world would look like if a catastrophe of any kind led to the earth-shattering event. The Road, from the general standpoint, may serve as a warning of dreadful consequences of a nuclear holocaust or of drastic climate change.25

But McCarthy’s work goes even deeper with George Monbiot, an environmental enthusiast, claiming that The Road equals the most important environmental book ever written, without containing any graphs, tables, figures or even arguments.26 The author Andrew O’Hagan believes that the novel is the first great masterpiece of the globally warmed generation.27And within literary criticism, The Road is said to have emerged as a sub-genre of dystopian literature called climate fiction. 28Earning such high praise, it should not come as a surprise that Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer Award for his arguably masterpiece in 2007.

McCarthy decided not to reveal what had led to such destruction, which naturally generated interest among scholars who pursued the task of identifying possible causes. 29 However, the catastrophic event which precluded the story is not given prominence, as the author is concerned with the consequences of the apocalypse and its impact on everyday struggle of the man and the boy, who stand in the centre of the novel. Similarly, the course of their journey has also left some scholars wondering but in this case, the evidence based on the dead plants

25LEAH, Gordon. Carrying the Fire – Is God present in the post apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road? p. 58 26 MONBIOT, George. Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?[online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/30/comment.books 27 JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. Climate Change and the Contemporary Novel (Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 61 28 STARK, Hannah. ‘All These Things He Saw and Did Not See’: Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 71 29 JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. My Job is to Take Care of You”: Climate Change, Humanity, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 521

15 suggest that they are moving through the Appalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. 30 At any rate, except for some morels (a small colony of them, shrunken, dried and wrinkled. He picked one and held it up and sniffed it. He bit a piece from the edge and chewed…)31, there really does not seem to be a conclusive evidence of any form of life apart from the human one. They may have encountered a dog along the way but his existence was never confirmed. More importantly, this new world is truly depicted specifically as sterile and devoid of life. 32

The world is often described as not resembling any form of life with the author using gloomy and dark adjectives. Cities are empty with dead corpses, or rather remains on the scene. The sun is barely visible because it is behind the gloom of the grey sky.

Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like grieving mother with a lamp.33

The world has evolved into a completely different place but the man faced a difficult challenge to keep track of what precisely has changed – the boy only knew this gloomy post- apocalyptical world while the man often applied ‗‘old rules‘‘ in certain instances, which naturally could have led to some confusion for the boy.

When he woke again, he thought the rain had stopped. But that wasnt what woke him. He’d been visited in a dream by creatures of a kind he’d never seen before. They did not speak. He thought that they’d been crouching by the side of his cot as he slept and then had skulked away on his awakening. He turned and looked at the boy. 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.34

The man rightfully acknowledges that the son must see him as a sort of an alien, and not just him. As the boy is not familiar with everyday things of the past world, he verbally expresses his puzzlement when encountering various basic things such as food.

What is all this stuff, Papa? It’s food. Can you read it? Pears. That says pears. Yes, it does. Oh yes it does. …..chile, corn, stew, soup, spaghetti sauce. The richness of a vanished world. Why is this here? the boy said. Is it real?35

30STARK, Hannah. ‘All These Things He Saw and Did Not See’: Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 73 31 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), p. 40. 32STARK, Hannah. ‘All These Things He Saw and Did Not See’: Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 73 33 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 32 34 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 153-154 35 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 139

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Not realizing initially the generational and pre/post-apocalyptic differences, the father makes it clear he should not have taken for granted some of the stuff he had tried to explain to his son. Given how much the entire planet changed, he suddenly realizes that some of the stories and his perception of the ‗‘old-world‘‘ may have not sounded believable to the son, who knew life only after the disaster. At the same time, the boy is far from being in the enviable position as far as coping with the post-apocalyptic world is concerned – apart from his father, who tries to act as a role model, he does not have the luxury of going to school or reading children literature. In other words, he does not have much of a choice but to rely heavily on the father, who puts survival above everything else. That partially explains some of the dispute over numerous issues – the little boy looks at the world through his naïve and innocent eyes and does not always understand why his father acts as if he was cold-hearted (see the chapter Distinguishing the good from the bad).

Interestingly enough, the morels, one of the few relics from the old world, are referred to as ‘alien-looking things.’

They pulled the morels from the ground, small alien-looking things that he piled in the hood of the boy’s parka.36

Basic flora and fauna no longer existed, so when encountering things particularly the man had not expected to see, such language seems appropriate. The Road expresses our worst possible fears about various scenarios resulting in the lack of food with virtually no sign of life.

Accounting for the urgency to act against the global warming, which had gained attention all around the world, the novel makes an environmental statement and owes of its cultural impact to climate change, even if it is not directly a climate change novel.37

36MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 40 37 JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. My Job is to Take Care of You”: Climate Change, Humanity, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 520.

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3. Different pace in novels in which characters face a similar dilemma

Bachman’s all four novels published before 1985, The Running Man included, share a protagonist who would rather sacrifice himself than surrender to forces of oppression. Ben Richards’ situation separates him from the rest as he is pushed to the edge and willing to sacrifice his life for the better of his closest & risk his sanity in order to break away from class separation and overall severe suppression. In a way, the father’s situation in The Road is comparable – he would undoubtedly put his own life on the line to save his son, however, the circumstances could not be more different.

As mentioned, The Running Man is influenced and reminiscent of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty- Four or Huxley’s Brave New World, following a totalitarian and polluted America with citizens holding barely any leverage against the Network. On the other hand, The Road presents the journey of a man, whose name and other details are not mentioned, and his son in their attempt to survive in a post-apocalyptic America. The mother is no longer with them – she decided to take her own life soon after giving birth to their son. Some may call it taking the high road while others may argue she should have been stronger, at least for her son. Either way, the mother was not prepared to face everyday struggle with barely any light at the end of the tunnel. The possibility of being raped and eaten would have scared off many more.

In The Running Man, the wife of Ben Richards decided to stick with it, and take care of her daughter. She did not know the answer to how to make their lives better, postponing the inevitable which eventually led to her murder. As a result, both novels examine the moral dilemmas such as is there any point in carrying on, or does one have anything to live for?

As critics have observed, McCarthy paints a vivid picture of a landscape previously ruined by an unspecified catastrophe. ‗‘It‘s hard to think of an apocalypse tale as beautifully, hauntingly constructed as this one. McCarthy possesses a massive, Biblical vocabulary and he unleashes it in this book with painterly effect. The Road takes him to a whole new level. It will grip even the coldest human heart.‘‘38

On the other hand, Bachman in his The Bachman Books claims that The Running Man is nothing but story and it moves with the goofy speed of a silent movie. 39 Written over a period of seventy-two hours, Bachman’s mindset was certainly not detailed-oriented as he used

38 THE STAR-LEDGER (Netwark). In: MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road – Acclaim for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. 39 BACHMAN, Richard. The Bachman Books, preface.

18 almost a stream-of-consciousness style. Bachman does not go into many details, whether it is Richards’ life or the Network’s background. He keeps it simple with many dialogues, and the plot does move at an incredible pace with Richards facing various life-threatening challenges on less than two hundred-and-fifty pages.

In contrast, The Road does not suffer from shortage of details. McCarthy in the first ~one- hundred pages focuses primarily on picturing the scenes, he depicts the landscape with not much going on, but it sets the tone perfectly:

At evening a dull sulphur light from the fires. The standing water in the roadside ditches black with the runoff. The mountains shrouded away. They crossed a river by a concrete bridge where skeins of ash and slurry moved slowly in the current. Charred bits of wood. In the end they stopped and turned back and camped under the bridge…40

Instead of focusing on the story, McCarthy puts extra emphasis on the atmosphere and the simple language, ignoring quotation marks, which suits the best this post-apocalyptic gloomy world.

3.1. Survival novels in which characters are shaped by their attitudes

Although the message, pace or language are entirely different, both The Running Man and The Road can also be regarded as survival novels, resembling some features of Lord of The Flies by William Golding or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Apart from striking similarities between The Running Man and The Hunger Games, McCarthy’s novel also explores the survival of the fittest, selfishness or mental toughness under pressure, as does Collins’ best-selling trilogy.

When it comes to The Road specifically, what particularly stands out is how the boy matures over the period of time and learns from his father how to survive, or how to give himself a better chance to survive. Facing a harsh reality, the boy did not have a choice but to try and cope with the new world as it was.

Naturally, the reader experiences the mental development of the boy, who was initially innocent as a lamb and helpful most of the time, regardless of the situation. Having said that, after encountering various situations, the boy eventually starts acting differently – when bumping into a man who got struck by the lightning, the boy wants to help at all costs.

40 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 51

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What is wrong with the man? He’s been struck with lightning. Cant we help him? Papa? No. We cant help him. They boy kept pulling at his coat. Papa? he said. Stop it. Cant we help him Papa? No. We cant help him. There’s nothing to be done for him. They went on. The boy was crying. He kept looking back.41

At this point, the boy is not fully aware of what they can control, and what they cannot control. While his human side is admirable, he would not make it far given the tough situation they were in. Still, given his age, the boy faces variety of situations for the very first time – he is not sure how he should react or what is best for them going forward, which is understandable, and he only does what he thinks is the right thing without benefiting from it in any way.

Later on, when they come across an ‗‘old, small and bent‘‘ man, the boy’s behavior has not changed much. At first, he wants to make sure that the old man knows they will not hurt him. After that, the boy suggests giving the old man some food. While the father does not necessarily agree, he lets the situation play out as he only refuses to give the old man a spoon. After spending the night, however, the concluding conversation between the father and the old man may have changed the boy’s point of view.

You should thank him you know, the man said. I wouldnt have given you anything. Maybe I should and maybe I shouldnt. Why wouldnt you? I wouldnt have given him mine. You dont care if it hurts his feelings? Will it hurt his feelings? No. That’s not why he did it. Why did he do it? He looked over at the boy and he looked at the old man. You wouldnt understand, he said. I’m not sure I do.42

During this sequence, the boy may have realized that staying alive was the upmost priority. The boy seems to be more aware of the fact that everyone thinks of their own survival first and foremost, and he adapts accordingly. His change of attitude is implied by that fact that

41 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 50 42 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 173

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‗‘they boy never looked back at all‘‘43, coming to terms with the man’s fate. Whereas when encountering that man struck by the lightning, the boy, in fact, kept looking back.

However, a major argument occurs between the man and the boy when they chase down a thief later on – a man who had stolen all of their possessions. Had they not found him, their odds would have hit an outside chance to make it at best. Unsurprisingly, given the circumstances and the man’s attitude focused purely on survival, the father had no mercy and applied the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, forcing the man to take all his clothes off. Everything indicates the boy would have been fine with re-claiming the possessions, but he was not in favor of leaving the man without any clothes on.

Dont do this, man. You didnt mind doing it to us. I’m begging you. Papa, the boy said. Come on. Listen to the kid. You tried to kill us. I’m starving, man. You’d have done the same. You took everything. Come on, man. I’ll die. I’m going to leave you the way you left us. Come on, I’m begging you. He pulled the cart back and swung it around and put the pistol on top and looked at the boy. Let’s go, he said. 44

Furthermore, the father decided to take such actions in order to make it almost impossible for the thief to survive, hence he would not threaten their safety ever again. 45The father decided to apply a more practical approach, protecting his own and son’s safety at all costs, while accounting for odds most of the time. As immoral and harsh as it sounds, the odds were never in the thief’s favor, whether he was stripped off his clothes or not. His desperate attempt to steal all of their possessions, along with his lack of self-awareness to cover his own tracks, suggest that he was not remotely as good as the man at finding ways to stay alive.

In The Running Man, Ben Richards’ development in a society, where the public is pacified through a televised game show, follows similar steps to the boy’s in terms of the change of his attitude. As a grown-up man, Richards obviously does not need to pick up the basics of life to

43MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 174 44 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 257-258 45 WANG, Qiu-sheng. Reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as an Entwicklungsroman, p. 1126

21 see how the society works, but he still adjusts to it as he gets closer to the heart of the problem.

At the beginning, Richards was mostly committed to helping his wife, Sheila, and daughter, Cathy even if it meant entering the deadliest show ever broadcasted. There is no conclusive evidence which suggests that Richards would eventually decide to hijack a plane and deliver a strong message towards the Network Games representatives, though.

‘You’ll what?’ He looked at her brutally. ‘Hustle? No more, Sheila. She’s got to have a real doctor. No more block midwife with dirty hands and whiskey breath. All the modern equipment. I’m going to see it.’ He crossed the room, eyes swiveling hypnotically to the Free-Vee bolted into one peeling wall above the sink. He took his cheap denim jacket off its hook and pulled it on with fretful gestures. ‘No! No, I won’t…won’t allow it. You’re not going to –‘ ‘Why not? At worst you can get a few oldbucks as the head of a fatherless house. One way or the other you’ll have enough to see her through this.’46

Richards clearly did not want his family to suffer anymore. By all likelihood, he grew sick of his wife offering her body in order to earn a minimum wage to keep the family running. Richards struggled with getting hired and felt the urgency to step up, which he did.

Prior to entering the show, Richards stuck to short answers while using sarcasm, showcasing his lack of fear and respect.

‘But they’ll all be alright,’ he said, and smiled back at her. He leaned forward and swatted her lightly on the rump. ‘Take a shower, kid. You done good.’ She blushed furiously. ‘I could have you disqualified.’ ‘Bullshit. You could get yourself fired, that’s all.’47

Richards burst out laughing. ‘Looks like a pile of shit.’48

On the one hand, he may have been on the verge of being disqualified. On the other hand, his cockiness was one of the reasons why he would make it far in the long run. And as a result of that, the representatives of the Network viewed him as potentially dangerous and thus needed to get rid of him.

46KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 2 47KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 24 48KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 26

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Towards the middle of the novel, however, his frustration level grows after having been betrayed by Mrs. Parrakis, who reported him to the authorities, or having been the center of attention for quite some time.

‘You know what’s disgusting?’ Richards asked, lighting a cigarette from the pack on the dashboard. ‘I’ll tell you. It’s disgusting to get blackballed because you don’t want to work in a General Atomics job that’s going to make you sterile. It’s disgusting to sit home and watch your wife earning the grocery money on her back. It’s disgusting to know the Network is killing millions of people each year with air pollutants when they could be manufacturing nose filters for six bucks a throw.’ ‘When this is over,’ Richards said, ‘you can back to your nice split-level duplex and light up a Doke and get stoned and love the way your new silverware sparkles in the highway. No one fighting rats with broomhandles in your neighborhood or shitting by the back stoop because the toilet doesn’t work. I met a little girl five years old with lung cancer. How’s that for disgusting?’49

All of a sudden, Richards used complex sentences when trying to make a point. By all accounts, Richards was well aware few dialogues would hardly make any difference as Amelia Williams, a woman belonging to the upper-class, had little reason to believe his side of the story. However, he did his best to open her eyes.

‘Put this on,’ Richards said. She continued to rock and moan, not hearing him. He dropped the parachute and slapped her. He could get no force into it. He balled his fist and punched her. She shut up. Her eyes stared at him dazedly. ‘Put this on,’ he said again. ‘Like a packsack. You see how?’ She nodded. ‘I. Can’t. Jump. Scared.’ ‘We’re going down. You have to jump.’50

Towards the end, Bachman provides the reader with clues of what might come next – hearing Richards’ wife and daughter had been murdered, with all the adversity he has faced, Richards’ future prospects certainly did not look bright. To make matters worse, Richards knew his injuries were fatal, and thus he took his time to put some thoughts into his life and basically non-existent future.

He couldn’t pack them back inside. It was all wrong, they were all jumbled. Frightening images from high school biology books jetted past his eyes. He realized with dawning, stumbling truth, the fact of his own actual ending, and cried out miserably through a mouthful of blood.51

There is a good reason to believe that is the point where Richards was reaching his final decision. As controversial decision as it gets. Because of that, there does not seem to be good

49KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 156-157 50KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 235 51KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 236

23 or wrong in the eventual action he took – some may understandably condemn it as an act of barbarism and cowardice, destroying a multi-million dollar building and killing hundreds of people in the process. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate actions. Richards arguably gave ordinary people hope, and they in turn may have plucked up the courage to follow in Richards’ footsteps to try to make the world a better place. Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

In The Road and The Running Man, the main characters deal with a tough environment which ultimately force them to act differently, even out of character & speed up the development process in case of the boy, who experienced everything but ordinary childhood. Our attitude determines the altitude of our life but our attitude when we have everything, or nothing, are entirely different.All characters did their very best, according to their beliefs and character, when dealing with adversity in a nightmarish society.

3.2. Where are we heading to with our consumption and hard-to- please society?

Another important theme in McCarthy’s novel is globalization. He examines it by representing the restricted movement of people and goods in the post-apocalyptical land, while simultaneously placing global networks at the origins of the apocalypse.52The man and his son depend on their shopping cart as they push it over uneven terrain carrying their limited possessions, regardless of the weather conditions. Throughout the text, McCarthy remarks on the remains of the consumer capitalism with the characters coming across empty parking lots, a rusted locomotive or a marooned sailboat. 53 All of which provides literally no value after the over-reliance on it by the consumer society – while certain products may come in handy, the main characters have limited access to fuel and other kinds of energy.

52 SMITH, Eleanor. The Poetics of Size: Rendering Apocalyptic Scale in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 90 53SMITH, Eleanor. The Poetics of Size: Rendering Apocalyptic Scale in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 91

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Thus, Coca-Cola serves as an important reference to what the old world represented. Mentioned twice in the text as a universal symbol of capitalism,54 Coca-Cola is thought to be a treat according to the father.

He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca Cola. What is it, Papa? It’s a treat. For you. What is it? Here. Sit down. …The boy took the can. It’s bubbly, he said. Go ahead. He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said. Yes. It is. You have some, Papa. I want you to drink it. You have some. He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here. It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isnt it?55

The father unselfishly wanted his son to have a taste of the world he had previously known. And when it comes to that, McCarthy could not have picked a more symbolic product than Coca-Cola. Little hints of happiness can be found throughout the text but in this particular case, the sequence ends with the boy shrewdly deducing he likely would not drink another one any time soon, if ever again.

Not only does Coca-Cola represent the pre-apocalyptical world, the gloomy present, it also refers to the boy’s lost future, and the greed of a society which did not plan ahead and did not secure the world for future generations. 56

In contrast to McCarthy’s outlook, Bachman borrowed from Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Orwell expressed his concerns over dangers of carving a path to the rule of the totally-in- control, all-seeing, all-knowing totalitarian regime in which any decision on our side may prove to be a deadly one. Apart from New Dollars, set up by those highly-regarded skyscraper-officials, money holds barely any value anymore, which deliberately puts ordinary citizens into a tough spot. Favoring the rich ones and eliminating the middle-class to a

54SMITH, Eleanor. The Poetics of Size: Rendering Apocalyptic Scale in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 91 55 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 23-24 56SMITH, Eleanor. The Poetics of Size: Rendering Apocalyptic Scale in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 92

25 minimum, representatives of the Network Games Building rely heavily on supposedly entertaining games during which human lives are at stake – only to brainwash the rest of the upper-to-middle class society, pleasure the masses and get rid of potentially dangerous people such as Ben Richards, who possesses the brains and courage to face the system and stick up for himself and his family.

Bachman gradually mentions and comments on various fundamental stuff such as books, which were not permitted per se, but those who wanted to play it safe, did not bother to risk at all.

He wished he had brought a book, but he supposed things just as well as they were. Books were regarded with suspicion at best, especially when carried by someone from south of the Canal.57

In addition to that, the Network officials did not mind making fun of low-class citizens, highlighting their dominance over known facts like not possessing anything valuable.

‘Hang your clothes on the hooks. Remember the number over your hook and give the number to the orderly at the far end. Don’t worry about your valuables. Nobody here wants them.’

Valuables. That was a hot one, Richards thought, unbuttoning his shirt. He had an empty wallet with a few pictures of Sheila and Cathy, a receipt for a shoe sole he had had replaced at the local cobbler’s six months ago, a keyring with no keys on it except for the doorkey, a baby sock that he did not remember putting in there, and the package of Blams he had gotten from the machine.58

Whereas those who remained in The Road suffered from an unknown disaster as the society had not prepared itself for such scenario, The Running Man evolved around an unfair game, in which ordinary citizens had no chance winning.

As the Western World benefits from surplus of supplies for the most part, McCarthy’s vision raises the question if the society plays it irresponsible in terms of saving energy or food. On the other hand, Bachman provides a look into an improbable, but not entirely out of the question future of reality shows – how far are we willing to go? People get bored easily nowadays with access to do-it-all technology, and the past proves that the powerful ones often push the limits. And as it turns out, TV viewers do not hesitate to pay to watch reality shows, featuring individuals in their attempt to outlast other participants on a deserted island. Participants are constantly watched – more or less the same way as Ben Richards in The Running Man with no privacy and possibility of getting exposed any moment. It gets even

57KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 11-12 58KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 14

26 worse with a slightly different format in shows such as Big Brother, conveniently named after the symbol in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. People underestimate the question of privacy and often show their true character in do-or-die type of TV show situations. One has to wonder if such reality shows can go even further in order to satisfy the ever hard-to-please viewer. What was considered unthinkable once became a golden standard for the television of the 21st century. What is to come next?

3.3. Distinguishing the good from the bad

In the eyes of either Richard Bachman or Cormac McCarthy, basic differences divide the good from the bad. In case of The Road, the father implies they are the good guys who carry the fire. The man and the boy can claim such status based on their refusal to eat other people. Additionally, the boy generally showed enough character by trying to see the good no matter what situation they found themselves in, or by specifically helping others – he pushed for giving food to an old man they had met on the road.

They watched him eat. When he was done he sat holding the empty tin and looking down into it as if more might appear. What do you want to give him? What do you think he should have? I dont 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. Yeah. He looked down at the old man and he looked at the road. All right, he said. But then tomorrow we go on. The boy didnt answer. That’s the best deal you’re going to get.59

In the morning they stood in the road and he and the boy argued about what to give the old man. In the end he didnt get much. Some cans of vegetables and fruit. Finally the boy just went over to the edge of the road and sat in the ashes. The old man fitted the tins into his knapsack and fastened the straps. You should thank him you know, the man said. I wouldnt have given you anything.60

The man’s behavior might be rightfully considered immoral or unethical by today’s standards(I wouldnt have given you anything…); however, he was mostly looking at the big picture – taking care of his son while being well aware that the old man would not make it regardless of how much food he was given. Still, the father likely wished to teach his son a few moral values in a world in which human existence has been reduced to the basics, and barely any

59 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 164-165 60 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 173

27 morals applied anymore. As a result, he did not put much effort into trying to argue with his son, even if he finally expressed his thoughts about the matter. Taking into account the circumstances and the fact that the boy’s mother had committed suicide, the father felt greater responsibility to keep the boy safe.

The father killed a man who had attempted to kill his son or refused to give up food to fellow travelers on the road. He also escaped from a basement full of human captives to save his son’s life, and he did not intend to help them either since he would put himself and his son to a great risk. In all instances, the father reacted as a protector of his son. He did not bear any malice, nor benefited mentally or physically in any fashion.

In contrast, ‗‘the bad guys‘‘ are represented by cannibals, who feast on human cattle chained in the basement or those responsible for ‗‘a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit‘‘.61 It goes a long way to show what some people might be capable of, provided an apocalypse occurred.

In The Road, the human race might be divided into the following three distinguishable groups – 1. those who stick to the basic human instincts and would do whatever it takes to stay alive, eating other humans included, 2. likes of the man and his son who do not intend to give up, but still follow certain ‗‘old‘‘ rules, maintain goodness elements and would not go as far as eating human flesh, and 3. people who rather commit a suicide than watch their close ones suffer, such as the boy’s mother. Such formula would likely apply to any similar catastrophic scenario.

In The Running Man, ‗‘the good guys‘‘ are represented by citizens, whose quality of life hit rock-bottom – food, medicine and other basic necessities of life are outrageously expensive for such people, and the only invariable besides death appears to be the mandatory Free-Vee, which distracts ordinary people from what is really happening. The likes of Ben Richards appear to have been victimized by a new class division, where middle-to-low class citizens live on the fringe of society.

Thus, ‗‘the bad guys‘‘ were mostly highly-regarded workers of the Network, who did not shy away from killing people in their TV shows. Not even willing to help kids or the elderly, the likes of Killian or McCone enjoyed suffering of people below their class division. The

61KUNSA, Ashley. “Maps of the World in Its Becoming”: Post-Apocalyptic Naming in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, p. 59

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Network was killing people directly in the shows (or putting them in situations where deaths were likely scenarios, such as in the show called Treadmill to Bucks) or indirectly by controlling the air, which equaled smoking four packs of cigarettes on good days only.

The contestant on Treadmill to Bucks had just missed a Bonus Question and had had a heart attack simultaneously. He was carried off on a rubber stretcher while the audience applauded.62

In conclusion, it is clear that ‘the bad guys‘‘ in The Running Man deliberately set up a corrupt system with zero intention to hold themselves accountable while using all leverage against an overpopulated, powerless and economically weak nation. On the other hand, it was not initially a question of choice for those cannibals in The Road. They could have picked death, or they could have taken the high road as the man and the kid did, but had the apocalypse never happened, they would not have become cannibals in all likelihood. By analyzing The Running Man and The Road, the reader can point out one of the key features of dystopian novels – good vs. bad with good representing a future hope, usually embodied in oppressed and struggling citizens.

3.4. Do the novels end on a positive note?

In The Road, when the man and the son finally reach their ultimate goal – the sea, it does not come close to fulfilling their expectations. The sun remains very weak and it is still cold even by the shore. Nothing has changed significantly, and the prospects in the long haul thus decreased with the main characters putting much hope into what they would eventually discover ‗‘on the beach‘‘. It was disappointing, yet predictable with the author creating tension.

Was there any hope left, though? The man’s mission to carry the fire was slowly coming to an end. His death might be considered symbolic – he did his best to prepare his son for survival, and thus the death was a logical outcome. Before he dies, he expresses his confidence that his young boy will continue with carrying the fire. When the son responds that he has no clue where the fire is, the dying man points out at him.

Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there. I can see it.63

62KING, Stephen. The Running Man, p. 4

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As the father did not have any energy left and only little purpose to carry on, the son, who was slowly growing into a man, represents a future hope.

The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She 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. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.64

Ironically, just after the man passes away, the boy finally had a stroke of luck. Whereas the man and the boy had not met many people on the road, certainly not the good ones, the boy bumped into a man and met his family almost right away. It only meant that the boy faced a tough challenge early on, though. It could have been a trap. Somebody may try to take advantage of his age and state of mind following his father’s death. An expected dialogue followed but it did not help the boy much as far as making a decision is concerned.

How do you know you’re one of the good guys? You dont. You’ll have to take a shot. Are you carrying the fire? Am I what? Carrying the fire. You’re kind of weirded out, arent you? No. Just a little. Yeah. That’s okay. So are you. What, carrying the fire? Yes. Yeah. We are. Do you have any kids? We do. Do you have a little boy? We have a little boy and we have a little girl. How old is he? He’s about your age. Maybe a little older. And you didnt eat them.

63 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 279 64 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 286

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No. You dont eat people. No. We dont eat people. And I can go with you? Yes. You can. Okay then. Okay.65

The boy eventually decided to trust his instincts to follow the man who seemed credible. It was only several minutes later when the man earned the boy’s trust – as the boy walked back into the woods to say a final goodbye to his father, he noticed that his father had been wrapped in a blanket as the man had promised. The stranger also trusted the boy to keep his revolver.

In the final pages of the novel, the woman represents an important figure, taking into account that the boy’s never met his mother or any woman for that matter. Therefore, the new mother assumes importance as he only learnt from his father and never had the privilege to pick up skills only a mother can provide. His new mother approves of his talking to the dad.

Furthermore, the reader learns that there is also a young girl in the family, suggesting the human race might not die out. It is left to anyone’s guess if the family can stay together and survive for years to come, but the fact that they made it this far suggests their resiliency and toughness in a hostile environment. The question if they survive long enough to carry the fire forward is transformed into the hope of new relationships, new faith and purpose.66 Though McCarthy depicted this horrific and bleak world up to this point, the reader is almost made to suspend all gloom and disbelief for a moment, and made to believe this is not the end of everything.67

On the other hand, The Running Man ends with a more dramatic, fast-moving scene as Ben Richards decides to fly an airliner into the Network Games building, killing Killian and possibly hundreds of highly-regarded representatives and other citizens. Ben Richards in The Running Man and the father in The Road took the high road by unselfishly trying to help future generations – the father by the means of raising a boy who, unlike him, was young and

65 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 284-285 66LEAH, Gordon. Carrying the Fire – Is God present in the post apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road? p. 63 67LEAH, Gordon. Carrying the Fire – Is God present in the post apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road? p. 63

31 strong enough to try to make a difference. In case of Ben Richards, it gets somewhat complicated; however, there is a good reason to believe he acted with the best intentions moving forward. Unfortunately, Richards’ ultimate decision inadvertently foreshadowed the terrorist events of September 11, 2001.Moreover, Richards quite likely killed hundreds of innocent people. It should not have gone this far, but Richards’ options were without a doubt limited. And it still sheds light on Richards’ thought process. It certainly emphasizes Richards’ rejection to join the Network as well as his solidarity to stick with the working class. By no means did he believe that working for Killian would be the right call. And by no means did he wish to kill innocent people. After all, Richards was severely wounded and he would die anyway, but he had the final say in how he would die. He could have died aboard the plane or soon after landing, admitting to have lost to Killian. Instead, Richards enjoyed his moral victory, outsmarting Killian for the last time while ‗‘grinning‘‘ before the impact.68

Douglas W. Texter argues that Richards by flying an airliner into the Games Commission Building permanently cancelled both The Running Man and its producer. 69 However, who is to say the Network would not recover quickly? Richards made a strong statement and he certainly hurt the games short-term, but it was more about getting the message across while trying to open some eyes. And provided Amelia Williams saved herself, she could have started backing up Richards’ side of the story, and thus the entire working class.

Richards was not afraid to do the unthinkable at that time, taking both personal revenge at Killian and also possibly setting a better environment for the future. Additionally, Richards did not hesitate to set free Amelia, who may have been considered an enemy but Richards was well aware she did not represent an actual threat. On the contrary, Amelia was just a victim of the environment the Network put in place, making average citizens look uninformed and biased. Richards made Amelia wonder and think about the world she thought she knew. And he felt sorry to have brought her into this mess.

Amelia Williams cried steadily in her seat long after the time when all tears should have gone dry. He wondered indifferently what would become of her. She couldn’t very well be returned to her husband and family in her present state, she simply was not the same lady who had pulled up to a routine stop sign with her mind all full of meals and meetings, clubs and cooking. She had Shown Red. He supposed there would be drugs and therapy, a patient showing off. The Place Where Two Roads Diverged, a pinpointing of the reason why the wrong path had been chosen. A carnival in dark mental browns. He wanted

68BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man, p. 241 69 TEXTER W., Douglas. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Dystopia": The Culture Industry's Neutralization of Stephen King's The Running Man, p. 57

32 suddenly to go to her, comfort her, tell her that she was not badly broken, that a single crisscrossing of psychic Band-Aids should fix her, make her even better than she had been before.70

Whereas Richards could not care less about Amelia when he met her.

‘I saw her,’ she said with a kind of smirking doubtfulness that made Richards want to smash her. Eat garbage, bitch. Kill a rat that was hiding in the breadbox, kill it with a whisk-broom and then see how you talk about my wife.71

Some presumably agreed with the Network’s politics but as mentioned, people such as Amelia presented a hope for the working class, if the right message did get across.

To summarize, The Running Man and The Road leave the readers wondering if and when things eventually turn around but provide them with that light at the end of a tunnel.

70 BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man, p. 225-226 71 BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man, p. 154

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4. Lesson plans

In the second half of the thesis, the author focuses on working with extracts from both novels to implement the studied texts into practice in English language teaching. Since teachers are generally expected to encourage their pupils to read extensively, even outside the class, selecting an intriguing topic at an appropriate level is a decent approach to start with. Not only should they motivate students, teachers also have to account for different pupils’ needs or a specific classroom climate. In order to achieve that, teachers need to make adjustments so that the study texts are suitable and attainable for the majority of pupils inside a classroom. As a result, applying variable lesson plans with a series of engaging and various assignments should help to keep pupils interested throughout the lessons.

Using The Running Man in ELT presents the teacher with plenty of options how to teach learners about equality, the impact of cameras on everyday life or danger of popularity of reality shows. It enables learners to think about today’s topics while subconsciously improving their language skills. Thus, pupils ought to be attracted to the topic, especially if presented in various fashion with the teacher using different methods and alternating challenging exercises with entertaining ones. And taking into account Bachman’s writing style is rather simple, few adjustments need to be made, unlike in McCarthy’s The Road, where the range of vocabulary appears to be wider and more complex, though that largely depends on the chosen passage.

The attached lesson plans consist of lessons aimed at pupils in the upper grades of secondary school as a certain range of vocabulary is required. If adjusted, it could also work with lower levels of education but it will not be the focus in this thesis.

To make pupils as involved as possible, the teacher has to account for the fact that some pupils will succeed in writing assignments, while others in group work, for instance. Various exercises whether in terms of length or typology should ensure that every pupil should excel in an area they specifically tend to succeed in, while trying to further develop those they are not as good at as others, and require teacher’s special attention. After all, pupils learn at a different pace, and a pupil might be particularly strong in an area with a fast development, whereas struggling in almost every single area outside their main focus. Such perception is presented by the theory of multiple intelligences originally proposed by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner.

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While we may continue to use the words smart and stupid, and while IQ tests may persist for certain purposes, the monopoly of those who believe in a single general intelligence has come to an end. Brain scientists and geneticists documenting the incredible differentiation of human capacities, computer programmers are creating systems that are intelligent in different ways, and educators are freshly acknowledging that their students have distinctive strengths and weaknesses.‖ 72 In essence, it provides the teacher with both challenge to plan English lessons that will appeal to a wide range of learners, but also options to include various activities from e.g. reading comprehension (verbal/linguistic intelligence), and error correction (logical/mathematical intelligence), to creative writing (linguistic/intrapersonal intelligence). As a result of that, the author tried to complement the extracts of The Running Man and The Road with additional material connected to the topic.

72W. JOSSEY-BASS, Kurt. The Brain and Learning. Article by Howard Gardner, p. 120

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4.1. Lesson plan based on The Running Man

Lesson: What is real about reality TV shows?

Age group: 9th graders/high-school students

Terms and concepts: cameras, reality TV, freedom, privacy, Big Brother, values, dystopia

Length: approximately three lessons

Methods: individual work, pair/group work, discussion, predicting as a reading strategy

Lesson aims: Pupils will be able to answer pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading questions and activities regarding the extracts from The Running Man. Additionally, pupils will think actively ahead of the text by means of predicting, helping them to understand the extract better, and make connections to what they are reading (or listening to). In turn, pupils will become actively involved in the reading process. 73Lastly, pupils will be willing to share their ideas and opinions based on the text and topic.

Classroom English:

Can you define the term dystopia? What could the text be about? What is the opposite of dystopia? Work in pairs/groups of three or four. Work on your own… Try to answer the questions on your own, and we will get back together after that. Can you explain what you are supposed to do? What really happened in the story? Try to back it up with some evidence in the text. Do you agree with the following statement? Is there any word you struggle with even after looking it up in the dictionary?

73Unknown author. Predicting.[online] Available at: https://readingstrategiesmsu.weebly.com/predicting.html

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1) A brief warm-up activity. Look at the pictures. What do you think we are going to talk about today? What do the pictures show? Work in pairs and try to discuss the following pictures.

First of all, the teacher is supposed to attract pupils’ interest in the topic they will be dealing with. Pupils should respond well to the chosen pictures, considering a new generation of pupils is well aware of cameras, TV and technology around us. Thus, pupils would be expected to start having a conversation right away and warm up to the upcoming tasks.

1) Pre-reading questions Take a quick look at the headline of an extract (headline only). What do you think The Running Man could stand for? What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see the term The Running Man? Use your own imagination. There is no wrong answer to this question. With regard to the first exercise, what could the extract be about?

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Pre-reading activities also help pupils prepare for the reading activity itself. It pushes them to think about the topic, and anticipate what specific issues they would be dealing with. If done in the right way, it can release some of the stress and uncertainty and actually increase their desire to read and talk more about the presented topic. In this particular case, the teacher wants pupils to use their imagination about the intriguing name The Running Man – each pupil may imagine something entirely different, which could lead to a productive discussion with pupils not worrying about their answers. However, the teacher has to make sure the lesson does not get out of control quickly.

1) Read the text on your own.

Do not forget to answer those questions while reading. There might be words and phrases you are not familiar with. If so, turn the page over and you will find a glossary (you can add any words you have not mastered yet). You can also work with a dictionary if necessary, however, keep in mind you do not need to understand every single word. First and foremost, try to understand the main idea of the extract.

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The Running Man by Richard Bachman (extract number one)

Behind the compulsive shrieking of the half-time announcer narrating the latest newsie flick, Cathy’s wailing went on and on. ‘How bad is it?’ Ben Richards asked. ‘Not so bad.’ ‘Don’t lie.’ ‘It’s a hundred and four.’ He brought both fists down on the table. A plastic dish jumped into the air and clattered down. ‘We’ll get a doctor. Try not to worry so much. Listen – She began to babble frantically to distract him, he had turned around and was watching the Free-Vee again. Half-time was over, and the game was on again.

Do you see the Free-Vee as a form of the Big Brother we had talked about?

This wasn’t one of the big ones, of course, just a cheap daytime come-on called Treadmill to Bucks. They accepted only chronic heart, liver, or lung patients, sometimes throwing in a crip for comic relief. Every minute the contestant could stay on the treadmill, he won ten dollars. Every two minutes the emcee asked a Bonus Question in the contestant’s category which was worth fifty dollars. If the contestant, dizzy, out of breath, heart doing fantastic rubber acrobatics in his chest, missed the question, fifty dollars was deducted from his winnings and the treadmill was speeded up.

Try to explain the scene. What exactly was Ben Richards watching? What was wrong with it?

‘We’ll get along, Ben. We will. Really. I … I’ll …’ ‘You’ll what?’ He looked at her brutally. ‘Hustle? No more, Sheila. She’s got to have a real doctor. No more block midwife with dirty hands and whiskey breath. All the modern equipment. I’m going to see to it.’ He crossed the room, eyes swiveling hypnotically to the Free-Vee bolted into one peeling wall above the sink. He took his cheap denim jacket off its hook and pulled it on with fretful gestures. ‘No! No, I won’t … won’t allow it. You’re not going to – ‘74

(the text was slightly adjusted)

74 BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man, p. 1-2

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GLOSSARY compulsive(1st paragraph)=doing something repeatedly, and being unable to stop doing so (e.g. compulsive gambling) shrieking(1st paragraph)=a short, loud, and possibly annoying cry babble(1st paragraph) = to talk in a confused or quick way treadmill(2nd paragraph) = an exercise machine which consists of a wheel with steps buck (2nd paragraph) = a dollar (informal) crip/cripple(2nd paragraph)=an offensive way to describe a person who cannot use their arms or legs emcee(2nd paragraph)=a person whose responsibility is to introduce performers in a TV/radio show get along(3rd paragraph)=to deal with a situation accordingly fretful (3rd paragraph)=behaving in a way that shows you are unhappy, worried or possibly uncomfortable

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2) Predicting. Based on the first extract, try to predict what is to come next in the story.

Predicting is generally considered an efficient reading strategy as pupils make connections to the text using prior knowledge of the text, or even their own experience. When making predictions, students try to envision what might come next after giving a thought into it. To achieve that, the teacher may read aloud with the students paying close attention to what is happening in the story thus far, and how it can further develop. It can be supported with a table students should fill in, after having read a first sequence. This gives pupils an extra time they can work with, plus they can clearly see if they were right or wrong in the end, and adjust accordingly. Unsurprisingly, if pupils encounter such exercises regularly, their predicting (reading comprehension) gradually improve. However, whether they are right or wrong should not be viewed upon as crucial when it comes to determining if the pupils were

41 successful or not. First and foremost, they should be confident to back their ideas up, think critically about the text and stay within the range of what is happening in the story. With The Running Man being solely focused on the story, which is not that challenging to follow in the first place, predicting seems a logical choice to push pupils, making them think and further develop their reading comprehension.

The Running Man by Richard Bachman (extract number two)

‘Why not? At worst you can get a few old bucks as the head of a fatherless house. One way or the other you’ll have enough to see her through this.’ ……… ‘Ben, this is just what they want, for people like us, like you –‘ ‘Maybe they won’t take me,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Maybe I don’t have whatever it is they look for.’ ‘If you go now, they’ll kill you. And I’ll be here watching it. Do you want me watching that with her in the next room?’ She was hardly coherent through her tears. ‘I want her to go on living.’ He tried to close the door, but she put her body in the way. ‘Give me a kiss before you go, then.’75

3) Discuss with your partner what really happened in the story. Were you right for the most part? Discuss the similarities/differences in your answers.

Pupils can share their predictions with their partner, as well as make connections to a different story shared by the partner.

75 BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man, p. 2-3

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4) Post-reading questions. Work on your own and try to think about the following questions. What is the message you personally take away from the text? Do you see reality TV shows as potentially dangerous? Why do you think people are attracted to watching reality TV shows nowadays? Do you agree with Ben Richards’ decision?

Post-reading activities are common and thus might be considered boring by pupils, especially if the teacher relies on them heavily. Still, such activities help pupils to understand texts better through critically analyzing what they have read about. The questions were picked so that pupils can express their opinions about the text itself, along with one of the major themes – reality TV shows.

5) Create groups of 3-4 and discuss the following quotes concerning the topics we have talked about. Do you (dis)agree with them? Give reasons why/why not. Whenever possible, try to come up with some specific examples. Use your own experience.

One of these quotes comes from The Running Man. Can you guess which one?

Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward

We are living in dystopia, in a world that is dominated by technology and disconnect, alienation, loneliness and dysfunction

He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride – if responsibility robs him of his manhood

I hate these reality TV shows where people walk off Big Brother and think they are A-list celebrities when they have done nothing in their lives

Everything has become so easy. It’s great that it’s at your fingertips, but I miss those good old days. And we’re connected, but it can be very alienating. There is this distance between all of us because we’re speaking to each other through cameras and monitors and icons and emojis

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As far as the last exercise is concerned, it is purely focused on conversation and pupils’ own ideas. While answering questions regarding the extract from The Running Man serves that purpose, too, pupils’ hands might be tied to some degree. Choosing appealing quotes related to the topic may make them even more engaged, though. Putting such exercise at the beginning of the lesson plan, with rather challenging quotes, would certainly be wrong, but provided the teacher passes on knowledge and basic terminology to pupils, nothing should stand in the way to have a productive speaking activity at the very end.

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4.2. Lesson plan based on The Road

Lesson: Human side of a world in which basic rules no longer apply

Age group: 9th graders/high-school students

Terms and concepts: apocalypse, catastrophe, dystopia, humility, , moral dilemma

Length: approximately three lessons

Methods: individual work, pair/group work, discussion, creative writing

Lesson aims: The Road serves as a suitable text for learners to learn more about apocalypses, or how people may act differently under tough circumstances, but may still stick to their human side of things after all. Apocalypses is a topic pupils ought to be generally attracted to, which gives the teacher plenty of options how to activate pupils and make the most of the lesson plan. Pupils will be able to answer questions based on the text, they will think critically while doing so and finally, they will be able to produce a piece of writing on the related topic.

Classroom English:

First of all, let’s start with a discussion… Work with your partner… Think carefully about the following question Do you agree with your schoolmate? Why/Why not? Turn your computer on, and try to find some information about the accident on the internet Highlight all words you are not familiar with That is all for today’s class. We will continue working with the extract tomorrow

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1) Discussion/seeking information. Do you remember a catastrophe of any kind that occurred on planet Earth? One of the worst accidents occurred on 25-26th of April in 1986. Do you know which one? If not, find the answer on the internet. At the same time, put down relevant notes about the accident.

To get pupils involved, the teacher may start by asking questions related to the issues explored in The Road. By doing so, pupils receive a different perspective and prepare mentally for what is a much different matter than the ones previously explored in The Running Man.

2) Telling a story. Following the first exercise, put down some notes about what you found about the accident on the internet. Tell your partner about three things you found most interesting or most important related to the accident.

Living in the 21st century with modern technology at its peak, pupils are usually adept at working with computers or using their phones. At the same time, pupils tend to struggle with finding relevant information in a world overwhelmed by all kinds of sources, texts and visualization. All over the world, there is a growing need for media education to be included in the school curriculum. To set the tone for working with The Road extract, starting with catastrophic incidents in general supported by pupils’ effort on the computer equals well- balanced exercises, helping to develop their all-around skills.

3) Read the following extract which describes a catastrophe as well, though of different origins by all accounts. Focus on the atmosphere and the main ideas you can gather from reading it. Highlight all words or phrases you are not familiar with, however, bear in mind you should focus on the main message of the text.

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy

(The story describes a desperate attempt by a man and his son to reach the Southeastern United States after a catastrophe of unknown origins occurred. Take notice of the author‘s deliberate lack of punctuation.)

He was a long time going to sleep. After a while he turned and looked at the man. His face in the small light streaked with black from the rain like some old world thespian. Can I ask you something? he said. Yes. Of course. Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now. And we’re still going south. Yes. So we’ll be warm. Yes. Okay. Okay what? Nothing. Just okay. Go to sleep. Okay. I’m going to blow out the lamp. Is that okay? Yes. That’s okay. And then later in the darkness: Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course you can. What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay.76 ------

76 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 10-11

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They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of his cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust. Fossil tracks in the dried sludge. A corpse in a doorway dried to leather. Grimacing at the day. He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget. 77 ______The traveler was not for looking back. They followed him for a while and then they overtook him. An old man, small and bent. He carried on his back an old army rucksack with a blanket roll tied across the top of it and he tapped along with a peeled stick for a cane. When he saw them he veered to the side of the road and turned and stood warily. He had a filthy towel tied under his jaw as if he suffered from toothache and even by their new world standards he smelled terrible. I dont have anything, he said. You can look if you want. We’re not robbers. He leaned one ear forward. What? he called. I said we’re not robbers. What are you? They’d no way to answer the question. He wiped his nose with the back of his wrist and stood waiting. He had no shoes at all and his feet were wrapped in rags and cardboard tied with green twine and any number of layers of vile clothing showed through the tears and holes in it. Of a sudden he seemed to wilt even further. He leaned on his cane and lowered himself into the road where he sat among the ashes with one hand over his head. He looked like a pile of rags fallen off a cart. They came forward and stood looking down at him? Sir? the man said. Sir? The boy squatted and put a hand on his shoulder. He’s scared, Papa. The man is scared. He looked up the road and down. If this is an ambush he goes first, he said. He’s just scared, Papa. Tell him we wont hurt him

77 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 12

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The old man shook his head from side to side, his fingers laced in his filthy hair. The boy looked up at his father. Maybe he thinks we’re not real. What does he think we are? I dont know. We cant stay here- We have to go. He’s scared, Papa. I dont think you should touch him. Maybe we could give him something to eat.78

4) Think carefully about the following question:

How would you act if you were in the boy’s and man’s shoes?

Imagine you are wandering through a land you no longer recognize. You want to reach the South but there are no guarantees you will ever get there, and even if you did, you have absolutely no chance knowing if the situation improves. The world previously known no longer exists. And now you are facing a moral dilemma – to help an old man or not? Not helping the man would be certainly immoral and atrocious on your part, however, extra food could help you to reach your ultimate goal. And the old man would not make it anyway.Would you stick to your human side or not?

Such exercise makes pupils think – about what happened, why it happened and how they would react personally. It should help to reduce a lack of critical engagement with the text. The exact instructions and additional context pupils would receive can be seen below the question. Taking into account the difficult situation described in the text, the teacher also needs to make sure pupils understand the unusual scene so that the task does not jeopardize pupils’ further development and general beliefs. However, if the task is executed properly, pupils should give a lot of thought into a complex moral dilemma, and it could also lead to an intriguing discussion inside the classroom.

78 MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road, p. 162-163

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5) Reading comprehension.

As you can see, apocalypses or accidents come in different forms. How would you describe the atmosphere of The Road?

What danger could the man with the boy possibly encounter along the way? Use your imagination, and try to come up with as many examples as possible.

How do you understand the sentence ‗‘ You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget‘‘? (towards the end of sequence no. 2)

Choose either the boy or the man character, and come up with a short description using mostly adjectives.

Summarize the key points of the extract.

Basic reading comprehension might be found boring by pupils, particularly if the questions are neither challenging nor interesting enough. Thus, the teacher’s responsibility is to eliminate or at least reduce all possible threats which could lower pupils’ efficiency and degree of interest when reading. The teacher may advise visualizing, especially to pupils possessing Spatial Intelligence. In this particular case, pupils may try to visualize the scenery and all around dark atmosphere depicted in the text (see question no. 1)which in turn might also help them to answer the other questions.

Additionally, pupils should be advised to highlight important sentences or words so that it is clear there is no point in understanding every single word. With regard to understanding the text on the whole, summarizing is a great tool as it requires students to determine what is important in the given text, and what is not worth mentioning or putting down. At the same time, pupils gradually develop a better understanding of texts they read. Even in this particular case, pupils should be told to ask themselves questions, both thin and thick79 to

79LYNCH, Erik. How To Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies In Your School.[online] Available at: https://www.sadlier.com/school/ela-blog/how-to-use-and-teach-reading-comprehension-strategies-in-your- school

50 think and wonder about the extract. An example of a thick question in The Road extract could be what is a possible lesson that can be learned from the dialogue between the man and his boy, and the old man?

6) Error correction Read the following statements and decide whether they are true or not based on the extract. If they are not right, correct them. Use full sentences.

The Road depicts a world after a nuclear catastrophe occurred.

They boy wanted to help the old man they had encountered.

When passing through the city, the man with the boy encountered a few fellow travelers.

The man suggested that if it were not for the boy, he would have nothing to live for.

The old man initially wanted to rob the man and the boy.

The old man smelled awfully but given the circumstances, the man with the boy coped with it admirably well.

Error correction tests pupils’ logical and linguistic intelligence. Given the more challenging nature of the extract, pupils can test and prove their understanding of The Road. It makes them think one more time about what they have read, and helps them prepare for the last exercise where they get more creative on their own.

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7) Creative Writing After reading and talking about two different catastrophic scenarios, it is now your turn to be creative. Try to write a story describing a catastrophic scenario – it could be anything from an accident of any kind to natural disaster nobody had seen coming. At the same time, the story could be either fictional or based on truth. Write approximately 100-150 words explaining what happened, and how it could be prevented by authorities from happening ever again.

The teacher explains the writing process, what students are expected to create with an example in hand. When dealing with such a type of exercise where individual time may vary significantly, depending on plenty of factors, it is always advisable to have extra exercises ready in case some pupils finish early –and such pupils are almost always to be found in a classroom. Everyone works at a different pace, which is understandable, but the teacher needs to make sure pupils understand the activity resembles a marathon, not a sprint, and there is no shame in finishing ten minutes later than other pupils.

When it comes to actual gain of knowledge, pupils should be able to work with a dystopian topic they can relate to their everyday life. While working with The Road extract solely would also make sense, the book presents the teacher with plenty of options of how to include similar, yet different catastrophic scenarios to his advantage. Besides that, pupils do not necessarily need to possess a vast amount of knowledge about the subject presented as they can come up with their own ideas and stories while practicing grammar and vocabulary. All things considered, pupils could all be successful when completing the assignment, particularly boys, but even girls might be attracted to the idea of creative writing on this particular matter.

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Conclusion

Although dystopian novels may not be the leading genre when it comes to teaching yet, current trends shown in the introduction of the thesis have revealed a tremendous advantage – pupils, in fact, enjoy reading dystopias. It is just a matter of time when pupils start encountering dystopian texts at school on a more consistent basis. As a result of that, the author tried to prove that working with slightly adjusted dystopian texts might not be out of the question if teachers keep their students interested and present them the topic in an attractive fashion.

The thesis initially analyses and compares two dystopian novels – The Running Man by Richard Bachman and The Road by Cormac McCarthy – which emerged as survival novels with some striking similarities, yet the main characters fight against all odds from entirely different reasons. Bachman and McCarthy both raise serious questions applicable to today’s society which makes their works suitable for working with inside the classroom.

The Running Man focuses primarily on the dynamic story while The Road provides a lot detailed descriptions, particularly in the first part of the book. All characters in the novels face challenging moral dilemmas, and the books touch on a number of intriguing topics which were also examined in the practical part of the thesis.

The author thus then develops prior knowledge into meaningful lesson plans, focusing on overall development of pupils with multiple intelligences in place, so that all pupils are given a chance to reach their upper potential. The lesson series provided should prove to be versatile and adjustable to any specific needs, class environment or gender composition, and thus suitable for ninth graders or secondary school students.

The Running Man touches on the ever important issue of freedom and the growing interest in reality TV shows, a trend of the 21st century which cannot be overlooked. Moreover, since Richard Bachman uses a fast-moving story pupils should be able to keep up with, the teacher may apply the technique of predicting which helps to further develop pupils’ reading skills. The Road, on the other hand, introduces a subject of catastrophe. The exercises were chosen to fit the character of the extract, which was slightly adjusted to be more in the line with the expected level of pupils’ English.

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While learning basic terms will not go away any time soon, pupils can pick up several terms, major dates or any other significant pieces of knowledge by working with a text, too, instead of being told explicitly. As teaching has been steadily developing and putting extra emphasis on various teaching methods and styles with countless high-technology available, it also equals a tremendous opportunity for teachers to work with up-to-date texts they may have been hesitant to work with in the past.

All in all, The Running Man and The Road proved to be a good choice to analyze and compare as they met the author’s expectations. The lesson plans are created in a way which is suitable and challenging, yet achievable for the majority of pupils. The lesson plans take into consideration pupils’ different needs and multiple intelligences, so that they lead to better study results with the aim on high efficiency level through a variety of teaching methods and exercises.

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References Bibliography

BACHMAN, Richard. The Running Man. Great Britain: New English Library, 1983. ISBN 978 1 444 72354 0

BOOSE, Greg. Are Dystopian Novels Here to Stay? In: Publishers Weekly, 2018, vol. 265, p. 76

FIDDES, Paul. Dystopia, Utopia, and Millennium: Competing Images of Presence in an Anxious World. In: Perspectives in Religious Studies, 2016, vol. 43, p. 7

HALLIN, D.C. The Uncensored War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0 19 503814 2

JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. Climate Change and the Contemporary Novel. Cambridge University Press, 2019. ISBN 9781108610162

JOHNS-PUTRA, Adeline. "My Job is to Take Care of You‖: Climate Change, Humanity, and Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road. In: Modern Fiction Studies, 2016, vol. 62, p. 521

KUNSA, Ashley. ―Maps of the World in Its Becoming‖: Post-Apocalyptic Naming in Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road. In: Journal of Modern Literature, 2009, vol. 33, p. 59

LEAH, Gordon. Carrying the Fire – Is God present in the post apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy‘s novel The Road? In: Epworth Review, 2011, vol. 38, p. 63

MANN, I.C. It rained fire: The Running Man from Bachman to Schwarzenegger. Science Fiction Film and Television, 2017, vol. 10, p. 197-203

MCCARTHY, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. ISBN 978 0 307 38645 8

SMITH, Eleanor. The Poetics of Size: Rendering Apocalyptic Scale in Nevil Shute‘s On the Beach and Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road. In: Colloquy: Text, Theory, Critique, 2018, vol. 35-36, p. 90-92

SPRYNGEN, Karen. Apocalypse now: Teens turn to dystopian novels. In: Publishers Weekly, 2010, vol. 257, p. 22

STARK, Hannah. ‘All These Things He Saw and Did Not See‘: Witnessing the End of the World in Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road. In: Critical Survey, 2013, vol. 25, p. 71-73

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TEXTER W., Douglas. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Dystopia": The Culture Industry‘s Neutralization of Stephen King's The Running Man. Pennsylvania State University Press: 2007, vol. 18, p. 43, p. 57

TOTH, Reid C. The Orangeburg Massacre: A Case Study of the Influence of Social Phenomena on Historical Recollection. In: Journal of African American Studies, 2010, vol. 15, p. 471

WANG, Qiu-sheng. Reading Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road as an Entwicklungsroman. In: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 2017, vol. 7, p. 1126

WARREN J., Beverly. Kent State Beyond The Shootings: Journey of The Wounded Healer. In: Vital Speeches of the Day, 2018, vol. 84, p. 268

W. JOSSEY-BASS, Kurt. The Brain and Learning. Jossey-Bass: 2007. ISBN 978- 0787962418

Online sources MONBIOT, George. Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already? [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/30/comment.books [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].

KING, Stephen. Frequently Asked Questions. [online] Available at: https://www.stephenking.com/faq.html [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].

LYNCH, Erik. How To Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies In Your School.[online] Available at: https://www.sadlier.com/school/ela-blog/how-to-use-and-teach-reading- comprehension-strategies-in-your-school [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].

P.BROWN, Stephen. Steven King shining through. [online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/04/09/steven-king-shining- through/eaf662da-e9eb-4aba-9eb9-217826684ab6/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fa59f8be5a4d [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].

Unknown author. Predicting.[online] Available at: https://readingstrategiesmsu.weebly.com/predicting.html [Accessed 15 Jun. 2019].

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Anotace

Jméno a příjmení: Bc. Martin Kirschbaum Katedra: Ústav cizích jazyků PdF UP Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Petr Anténe, PhD. Rok obhajoby: 2019

Název práce: Běh o život Richarda Bachmana a Cesta Cormaca McCartyho. Analýza a srovnání dystopických románů

Název v angličtině: Analysis and comparison of two dystopian novels – The Running Man and The Road

Anotace práce: Cílem diplomové práce je analyzovat a srovnat dystopické romány dvou současných amerických autorů – Richarda Bachmana a Cormaca McCarthyho. Autor posléze získané poznatky aplikuje při tvorbě plánů vyučovacích hodin anglického jazyka. Klíčová slova: Běh o život, Cesta, dystopie, ELT

Anotace v angličtině: The aim of the thesis is to analyze and compare two dystopian novels of two contemporary American authors – Richard Bachman and Cormac McCarthy. Based on the findings, the author then tries to create meaningful lesson plans for English language teaching. Klíčová slova The Running Man, The Road, dystopia, ELT v angličtině: Přílohy vázané v práci: -

Rozsah práce: 58 stran Jazyk práce: anglický

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Resumé

V této diplomové práci autor analyzoval a porovnával dva dystopické romány – Běh o život od Richarda Bachmana a Cesta od Cormaca McCarthyho. Vzhledem k rostoucímu zájmu žáků o žánr dystopie autor posléze získané znalosti implementuje při tvorbě plánů vyučovacích hodin anglického jazyka tak, aby výstupy byly relevantní a smysluplné. Autor klade důraz především na tematicky vhodné motivy moderních technologií či lidskosti, které se posléze odráží i v jednotlivých přípravách k výuce anglického jazyka.

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