According to Friedrich Nietzsche, “Hope is in truth the worst of all evils, because it protracts the torment of men” (Nietzsche 45). The Road is set in a post-apocalyptic “grey world” where the last remnants of humanity fade away into oblivion. This world is literally “dead”(%^%), life as we know it is over and civilisation is beyond saving. To complicate the situation, however, McCarthy infuses hope into this dystopian world. This creates an illusion of hope where in fact, there is none for the characters in the book. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy uses the love the man and woman have for their son to complicatedly delineate the hopelessness of their dystopian world.
Firstly, the representation of the mother`s love for her son and family expresses …show more content…
The man and his wife both love their son but they both end up dying. Unlike the man, the woman explicitly recognises the world for what it is –a world in a limbo, a world that lingers between the past and the future. The pre-apocalyptic world is lost and the new world is yet to emerge. Moreover, the boy, like his mother, recognises the kindness that death brings as opposed to the hardships of living in their dystopian world when he says “I wish I was with my mom” (55). The man`s notion of the world, however, is a paradox. He recognises that the world has ended and that hope is no longer in the picture for a new one yet he acts as though there is hope. He portrays actions of hope which his consciousness does not. The man`s notion of hope only prolongs his torment in an already dying world that is doomed to die. In his final moments, the man says he`s death “has been a long time coming” (278). The man finally agrees with his consciousness, and consequently, his wife, that death is really the only escape. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy makes the journey of the man and the boy to be a journey that hinges on hope and love but really there is hardly hope for a better future in their dystopian world. At the very last paragraph of the book, McCarthy says “Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again” (287). After it all, he too hints that there is no hope for a new world to
Firstly, the representation of the mother`s love for her son and family expresses …show more content…
The man and his wife both love their son but they both end up dying. Unlike the man, the woman explicitly recognises the world for what it is –a world in a limbo, a world that lingers between the past and the future. The pre-apocalyptic world is lost and the new world is yet to emerge. Moreover, the boy, like his mother, recognises the kindness that death brings as opposed to the hardships of living in their dystopian world when he says “I wish I was with my mom” (55). The man`s notion of the world, however, is a paradox. He recognises that the world has ended and that hope is no longer in the picture for a new one yet he acts as though there is hope. He portrays actions of hope which his consciousness does not. The man`s notion of hope only prolongs his torment in an already dying world that is doomed to die. In his final moments, the man says he`s death “has been a long time coming” (278). The man finally agrees with his consciousness, and consequently, his wife, that death is really the only escape. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy makes the journey of the man and the boy to be a journey that hinges on hope and love but really there is hardly hope for a better future in their dystopian world. At the very last paragraph of the book, McCarthy says “Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again” (287). After it all, he too hints that there is no hope for a new world to