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Post-Apocalyptic Fiction and the Limits of Optimism: A Pessimistic Reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

2021; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 64; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00111619.2021.1944042

1939-9138

Shannon Lodoen,

Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis

This essay analyzes Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 post-apocalyptic novel The Road using a pessimistic framework based on the work of philosopher and environmentalist Peter Wessel Zapffe. Zapffe contends that humans make their way in the world only by ignoring, avoiding, or sublimating their existential terror through “repressional mechanisms,” or coping strategies. I employ The Road as a case study to examine how repressional mechanisms function within the novel and within society more broadly. Through a deconstruction of the overly optimistic, progress-oriented presumptions made by both characters and readers, I demonstrate how McCarthy’s text comments upon the strength of humanity’s repressional mechanisms and underscores how these coping strategies have resulted in a collective inability to face our environmental, social, and individual situations. I ultimately assert that a truly pessimistic reading of The Road offers a far more profound (and devastating) critique of today’s society than many McCarthy scholars are willing or able to acknowledge.