Lit log #1

In the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Several references to the past are made throughout the way, as are numerous memories of the father. The son is too little to recall and views the new world through totally different eyes than his father. The father attempts to dial home at the beginning of the novel: “he picked up the phone and dialed the number of his father’s house that long ago” (p.5) This is a desperate and fruitless act. The youngster has no idea what his father is doing. The father never justifies his behavior, as though he is ashamed of wanting to reconnect with his old life. The father is unable to describe the old world to his son: “He couldn’t construct for the child’s enjoyment the world he’d lost without also constructing the loss…” He couldn’t spark in the child’s heart what was ashes in his own.” (p. 163) The past is out of grasp. It exists only in the father’s memory, which is erratic in its recall. The ashes of the world have migrated into his heart, suffocating his own spirit until he is nothing more than a shell pretending to be human for the sake of his son’s survival. The father’s recollection is scattered and hazy, making it impossible for even the reader to comprehend what life was like in the past: “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” (p.11) This reflects the father’s and the novel’s despair. He is being honest with his youngster about life rather than filling him with the uplifting optimism that we are accustomed to feeding our own children when they are young. This is followed by a flashback to the father’s childhood with his uncle. Despite the fact that the recollection is supposed to be found, there is a sense of loss. The attention sharply returns to the dismal grey of the present world, and they are on the move. There are clues of a collapsed society as they go through the various towns and locations: “The billboards had been whited out with thin coats of paint in order to write on them, and through the paint could be seen a faint palimpsest of adverts for commodities which no longer existed.” (p. 135) Billboards depict a civilization in which media, marketing, and sales dominated television, publications, and, more recently, the internet. Materialism has all but evaporated on this post-apocalyptic planet. With civilization disassembled, only the essentials are desired: safety and edible food. McCarthy emphasizes our reliance on things that are unnecessary…