An Allegory For Modern Times-a Sartrean Existentialist Approach To The Road

Since The Road, the10thwork published by American contemporary writer Cormac McCarthy, has attractedthe highly attention from home and abroad. The scholars mainly discuss and research this book in aspects ofecological criticism, nihilism, existentialism, humanity and post-apocalyptic. McCarthy applies the traditionalallegory expression technique, and describes a world which has suffered from the unknown disaster that peopleare in great misery. He also reveals the theme of hope. From the perspective of the Sartrean Existentialism, thispaper analyzes The Road under the western allegory in three chapters.In the first chapter, after searching and collecting the documents concerning The Road and McCarthy, thispaper introduces the Sartrean Existentialism and western allegory theory briefly, and affirms the application andtransformation of the traditional allegory in The Road, and lists the purpose and significance at last.In the second chapter, in order to explore the reflection of the Sartrean Existentialism in this allegory ofmodern times and the hope that brought by it, the writer would discuss them in three parts. At first, the writerwill briefly analyze the conflicts between the protagonist himself and other strangers under the theory of Sartrethat the conflicts between man-self and man-nature. Then, combines with the absolute responsibility theory ofSartre, the writer analyzes the responsibilities for nature and others in the novel. The problems presented in thesetwo parts are the problems in today’s society. The novel describes the modern crisis, and tells people how to getrid of these crises, which shows in the last part concerning about the theme of hope. In this part, the thesisinterprets the protagonists’endless hope in actions in the end of the world with Sartre’s action is hope theory.In the third conclusion chapter, this paper analyzes the significant issues presented in The Road, and statesthat this novel not only describes the inheritance of hope between a father and his son, but also acts as the carrierof modern era, and exposes common existing modern crisis. Disclosing the major principle from a simple story,this warning modernist allegory gives us a deeper and further thinking.