Jessica Errera
Anderson/ENGL150
Revised Web Essay
Animals in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
In the post-apocalyptic world of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a man and his
son struggle to survive, battling thirst, hunger and predators, sometimes all at once. The
dismal future of this world is echoed in the prevalence, or sometimes lack, of life itself.
The man and his son meet few other survivors on the road, even fewer who do not seek to
harm them, and animals and other creatures are few and far between. Each being
encountered serves a purpose, largely in defining the world, both new and old, but also in
defining the relationship and roles of this father and son.
Understandably, the reference to and sightings of animals throughout the course
of The Road are very limited. The first recognizable reference to an animal comes from
the young boy, after he and his father stumble upon a damn. “Do you think there could be
fish in the lake?” he asks. The father replies, “No. There’s nothing in the lake”
(McCarthy 20). The childish innocence of this question is endearing; the boy still
maintains hope for life. The father, however, is realistic almost to the point of being
resigned. Yet, it is part of his duty as a teacher and provider that he be realistic and shows
the child how to survive with what is available. The son’s naïve hope that there are still
fish only serves to emphasize the fact that there are none, the world is truly different now
and one can no longer expect certain things from it.
Though the man is outwardly realistic with his son about the impossibility of fish
in the river, the next paragraph draws the reader into one of the father’s pre-apocalyptic
memories. He recalls a falcon preying upon a crane, easy as breathing. This memory is
interesting in that it again, highlights the drastic change that the world has undergone, but
also characterizes the father. Though harsh, the memory is described beautifully.
In that long ago somewhere very near this place he’d watched a falcon fall down
the long blue wall of the mountain and break with the keel of its breastbone the
midmost from a flight of cranes and take it to the river below all gangly and
wrecked and trailing its loose and blowsy plumage in the still autumn air (20).
Though the father and narrator are not explicitly one single entity, the reader never sees
the father pass these memories and this knowledge onto his son (if he ever does). In fact,
the narrator refers to the past—to an entire era of the man’s life—as “that long ago.” The
father distinctly separates his life based on the two worlds he has lived in. It seems he
holds to the notion that what was a part of his first-world life has no place in his second.
It is also probable that the man is trying to protect his son: is it worth describing
something so beautiful if you inevitably will have to describe how it was all destroyed?
Though this memory is never explicitly shared, it is obvious that the man still
carries it within him, exemplifying his role as a historian. We see this again when the
narrator begins listing things forgotten, “The names of things slowly following those
things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds…” (88-89). It seems that the father, by
way of the narrator, only remembers these things in reference to the fact that they are
fading away, never to return. Furthermore, he lets them go because knowing the names of
extinct birds may be of little use for survival, so even the references are fading, “in time
to wink out forever” (89). This bleak outlook is telling of the father’s struggle to balance
his pre- and post-apocalyptic lives. As a protector to his son, it makes sense only to tell
that which is useful for survival. In fact, it is self-less that he does not force these
memories of a better time upon his son. As a historian, however, one struggles with
letting go of their memories and losing the world that shaped them.
The next reference to animal life is an image of the son “shivering like a dog”—a
bleak comparison when one considers that all animals, especially pets, are either extinct
or very near it (67). It is strange then, that McCarthy chooses a metaphor that no longer
has relevance in this world. Ironically, a few pages later, there is mention of a time, likely
in the (more) recent past, when the boy and his father heard a dog.
A dog?
Yes.
Where did it come from?
I dont know.
We’re not going to kill it, are we Papa?
No. We’re not going to kill it. (82)
This dog is the only living animal mentioned in the entire novel, and even here it is heard,
not seen. Beyond that, this encounter appears to be a memory from the early postapocalyptic days; in the present time, there do not seem to be any living creatures besides
humans. The boy has qualms about killing this dog even though, most likely, he has
never owned a pet. However, he still feels the need to uphold traditional standards of
morality. Perhaps the boy has a memory of the days before the entire world turned upside
down, where people still loved and kept pets.
Two pages later the man tries to catch the dog, giving up only when his son
begins to cry and later rationalizing that the dog was worthlessly emaciated anyway.
Through this interaction we see the father and son switch roles, the son becoming the
teacher of morality and the father becoming the student. This is just another way that the
scarcity (or prevalence) of animals brings to light the redefined rules of conduct, and
particularly of parent-child relationships, in this post-apocalyptic world.
Animal references also highlight the boy’s youth and solidify the irreparable
divide between a father and son born into different worlds. At one point the father uses
the phrase “as the crow flies” and his son needs an explanation as to what this means
(156). The boy does not know that crows do not have to follow roads, probably because
he has never seen one. This moment allows the father to pass on a piece of his old life in
a way that is not harmful to the boy or the boy’s hope. Here the crow reference both
overcomes and reinforces the divide that separates them. The reader realizes that all the
knowledge the boy will ever have of crows is his father’s explanation; he will never have
an image with which to contextualize the expression. This begs the question: will new
sayings and metaphors rise from the context of this new world or will this simple aspect
of language, like all living creatures, eventually die out leaving virtually no trace of the
past world in the present.
On page 214, McCarthy again raises the issue of unfamiliarity with living
creatures when the boy comes across the mounted head of a deer. The boy stops and
stares at it, completely befuddled, while the father passes by unperturbed. The boy, again,
has likely never seen a deer aside from those that are plastic lawn ornaments, and perhaps
he even had to ask about those (185). It is in these small moments that the reader is
reminded of how vast the changes have been and of the slim chance of life returning to
even a semblance of what it once was.
It is no coincidence that the last passage of the novel also discusses animals,
though perhaps in the least clear yet most beautiful way of all.
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could
see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins
wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished
and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that
were the maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing
which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens
where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of
mystery (286-7).
The beauty with which the trout are described, and their simplicity both in the prose and
in life, is almost magical. The maps on their back describe a world long gone, even in the
father’s pre-apocalyptic time, yet they still managed to survive long after those patterns
became irrelevant. These fish have become a symbol of all life before the apocalyptic
divide; they cannot be put back or made right again. However, that life and time did exist
and as the trout created mystery in the old world, the memory of all living things will
create the mysteries of the new world.
The prose of the last passage of The Road is similar in tone to “The Song of
Purple Summer” from the musical Spring Awakening.
But still it stays,
the butterfly sings,
and opens purple summer,
with a flutter of its wings.
The earth will wave with corn,
the grey-fly choir will mourn,
And mares will neigh,
with stallions that they mate,
foals they’ve born,
and all shall know the wonder of purple summer
(Sater).
The song and passage both generate a sadness and nostalgia for something long
gone. The song does so with its gentle, repetitive guitar and soothing, breathy vocals, the
passage with its fragmented structure and the imagery created through use of words such
as “amber,” “wimpled,” and “torsional.” Though what is gone can never return, both the
song and passage also create the hum of mystery. In both pieces, this hum is associated
with animals and is indicative of some force beyond humans. This force is the mystery,
representative of all that is known and all that has been or will be known.
Jessica Errera
Works Cited:
Frye, Steven. Understanding Cormac McCarthy. Columbia, SC: University of South
Carolina, 2009. Print.
Hage, Erik. Cormac McCarthy: A Literary Companion. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co,
2010. Print.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
Sater, Steven, Duncan Sheik, and Frank Wedekind. Spring Awakening a New Musical.
Decca Broadway, 2009. CD.