Tragedy and Horror in Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

Running head: QUEST FOR WISDOM
Quest for Wisdom
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1QUEST FOR WISDOM
Introduction:
Tragedy can be understood as any event that can cause great suffering and distress
among people, caused due to accidents, catastrophe, conflicts and crime. Many authors and
philosophers have discussed the impact of suffering on humans and how much of these
sufferings can be called senseless (Grubisic et al., 2014). The aim of this essay is to analyze
the concepts of tragedy and horror that has been described in the novel ‘The Road’ by the
American writer, Cormac McCarthy, which is a post apocalyptic story of a journey made by a
father and son over several months through a landscape that has been destroyed by a
cataclysmic event (Penhall & McCarthy, 2014).
Discussion:
Land covered with Ash and devoid of any life:
The story unravels as a post cataclysmic landscape caused by a massive extinction
that destroyed most of the human civilization. The utter bleakness and hopelessness of the
landscape has been portrayed as ash covered and also devoid of any signs of life. This
imagery shows the brutal horror after a tragic event of an unprecedented scale, as an earth
swallowed in darkness, and the surviving human race cowering and hiding in the shadows,
living on borrowed time. The lines “The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth.
Darkness implacable... Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to
sorrow it” beautifully and vividly describes this imagery (Bloom, 2014).
The Dying Father:
The tragedy and distress of the travelling father and son have been emphasized with
the imminent death of the father. This revelation has been shown as a great contributor to the
mental distress faced by both of them, as the father is worried about the wellbeing and safety