Reading Allegory and Nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of the Language of Nature

Gabriella Blasi

doi:10.1515/arcadia-2014-0006

Article

Reading Allegory and Nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of the Language of Nature

Gabriella Blasi

Published/Copyright: June 6, 2014

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From the journal arcadia Volume 49 Issue 1

Abstract

This ecocritical reading of nature images in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road draws on Walter Benjamin’s conception of allegory and interprets the novel’s vision of nature as an allegory about a finite material reality that is subordinated to a vast cyclic cosmic order. Allegories are central for interpreting both nature and the mother figure in The Road, and their importance is underlined by repeated allusions to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. However, close textual analysis of specific passages reveals allusions to the movement of the stars and of the earth; such allusions indicate a suppressed and non-anthropocentric vision of the earth and its long cycles. This opens possibilities for interdisciplinary appreciation of the novel’s enigmatic ending.

Keywords: Cormac McCarthy; The Road; Allegory; Ecocriticism; Walter Benjamin; Nature

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Warwick Mules, Kate Rigby, Vivienne Muller and Clare Archer-Lean for their encouragement in pursuing and expanding the ideas developed in this paper.

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Published Online: 2014-6-6

Published in Print: 2014-6-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/arcadia-2014-0006

Keywords for this article

Cormac McCarthy; The Road; Allegory; Ecocriticism; Walter Benjamin; Nature