Nihilistic Feature Of Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road

In2007, Cormac McCarthy won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his post-apocalypticnovel The Road, which was published in2006. While winning academic recognition,The Road has also received popularity among the public--it was selected by OprahWinfrey as choice of her book club; New York Times remarked that "Trenchant andterrifying, written with stripped-down urgency and fueled by the force of a universalnightmare...this is art that both frightens and inspires." Critics tend to focus on theviolence theme while neglecting nihilistic features on McCarthy’s works. Thoughdenied by the author himself, nihilism is enshrouding many of his novels--the bloodyand horrible scenes in Blood Meridian, the aimless hunting in The Crossing, theextreme isolation in Child of God and so on. This thesis will, by use of theinterpretation of nihilism by Nietzsche and Satre, explore the nihilistic theme in TheRoad.This thesis has five chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction to CormacMcCarthy and different writing styles and themes in each period, followed by a briefon recent studies on nihilism and its relationship with post-modernism. Chapter Twowill focus on the collapse of religion and morality. Chapter Three will talk about thedisappearance and rebuilding of civilization and reasoning. Here, a famousallegory--the cave allegory by Plato, will be used to illustrate that McCarthy wants totell readers the impossibility of regaining reasoning in a post-apocalyptic world.Chapter Four will stress on the absence of symbols and meanings. All the names, be itpeople’s names or names of streets and buildings, are totally absent here, whichmanifests that McCarthy refuses to admit any meanings. At last, based on what hasbeen talked about, a conclusion will finally be made：McCarthy is trying to unveil thenihilism of any value and people’s anxiety about life in modern society by describingthe disappearance of religion, morality, civilization and symbols in a post-apocalypticworld in The Road.