Views on Humanity
The effort of speaking definitively upon what humanity would resort to in the event of an apocalypse is akin to divining the true purpose behind life. Every last person in the world knows the idea exists, but is unsure of what course to take. Cormac McCarthy takes readers along a particularly dreary path towards the realization of what might happen should the world as humanity knows it ever end, sparing no sensibilities along the way. The question of what will befall humanity should the world as it is known ever end is one that offers many different answers. As imperfect beings that require order, humans will turn upon one another when that ideal is absent.
The loss of hope can kill as surely as any human hand, and in Cormac McCarthy’s (2006) stunning depiction of the world after its fall the mere existence of hope seems a frail and fragile thing. In the book there are few pages that offer any true, lasting hope that the two protagonists can cling to, only fleeting moments that seem there and gone within the span of a breath. Food, shelter, and a relative amount of safety are barely recognizable in some regards when they come along, and are fully embraced for the short time they last. Humankind is a species that despite great advances and the capability for great and wondrous things will turn upon each other without much provocation in order to survive.
As it is seen in the book and the movie adaptation human beings are far too often bent
upon taking what is there to be had, never once thinking about the needs of others. The father thinks of the son often, providing an interesting counterpoint to the utter hopelessness of the story. He seeks to raise his child and teach him how to survive, but can do little else. In a land where a stranger might very well seek to take their lives for the sake of food or other useful items it is enough that the father has sought to keep his son alive when traveling alone would be so much easier.
Such an act speaks out against the hopelessness of the man’s wife, who when faced with the lack of hope after the end of the world took her own life. Left to raise their son on his own, the man did as best he could, but cannot escape the dread and ever-looming dangers just around every bend. Despite his continued perseverance and desperate, clinging hope even the father must admit at times that their situation is anything but tenable. Even after the situation he is thrust into the father still pushes forward, always cautious, always wary, but still always willing to take that next step.
Human beings are social creatures, and when pressed will band together to face a common enemy. When the enemy is the very world they live upon however unity breaks down quickly, and the need for survival takes over. In this case there are no morals, no ethics, and only the most basic need to feed, find shelter, and stay alive. The father and the son are capable of these three basic things, but it is only the father that is able to do whatever it takes to make those three necessities possible.
McCarthy’s story shows the absolute and utter desolation that is left in the wake of
mankind and how humanity responds to the ashen, decrepit wasteland that is left behind. In the
story he shows how the iniquities of humankind emerge quickly and with such savagery that it
seems as though as a species mankind has taken a step backwards in evolution. In a sense human
beings have become more akin to the beasts of the field than the thinking, reasoning creatures that once ruled the barren world that is left. When the world ends, and all social constructs are laid to rest, humans will turn upon one another in an effort to survive.
It has been stated in many different ways that human beings are the authors of their own demise, and in McCarthy’s story it is seen in stark relief that this is not just a vague and unfounded epithet. Human beings, despite being social, are also at their core little better than animals when all niceties and social graces are stripped away. A prime example comes during the story when the father and the son are forced to retrieve their belongings from a thief who sought to take what was theirs. The father demands the thief return what was stolen, and then, with his son watching on appalled and terrified, instructs the thief to strip naked and place his own items upon the cart. When survival is on the line there is no low to which many humans will not lower themselves.
It is a bleak and unforgiving landscape that McCarthy paints in his tale. Humankind, for all that its members aspire to hope and a better existence, are driven by chaos just as much as order, and will embrace the former in favor of the latter quite often. Being bad is the easy path, the method by which many would ascribe to in a time of need. The act of being righteous, uplifting, and presenting a beacon of hope in times of great need is exhausting, not to mention futile when the looming dark creeps ever closer. Even a light that shines bright produces more and more shadows. In this manner the hope of humanity is still its downfall.
Humans are meant to live with one another, yet they are also meant to be their own
destruction. The story of The Road details this with great relish, showing hope only to break up
the monotony of depression. Humankind seeks its own destruction, and needs no other force to
facilitate such a decline. When humanity falls it will be by its own hand.
Works Cited
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.
