Maps of the World in Its Becoming: Post-Apocalyptic Naming in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_modern_literature/v033/33.1.kunsa.pdf)

In this paper, Ashley Kunsa takes an optimistic approach to a seemingly abysmal and infinitely bleak novel by Cormac McCarthy “The Road”. Here Kunsa suggests a possibility for redemption of mankind as she believes “we discover the seeds of the works unexpectedly optimistic worldview”. She seem to argue that the Father and the Boy’s act of abstaining barbarism and cannibalism is a major salvation for mankind and an uncontroversial evidence that even in a lawless world, man’s conscious still lives.

Kunsa quotes many other scholars who studied this novel and both extends beyond their point or refute their claims. “Chabon is wrong in claiming that “the quest here feels random, empty at its core” (117). The “maps and mazes” at The Road’s end point toward something essential at the center of the journey, and tellingly, the novel closes not with the intersection of arbitrary and nonsensical lines, but with the patterns on the backs of the trout, “maps of the world in its becoming,” forms that suggest an inherent order and underlying purpose yet undiscovered”

(Example paragraph of using her article to help angle my argument)

Man’s all compelling need for survival is evident in the development of the main characters, the boy and the man, in The Road. Some critics argue that McCarthy suggests the possibility for redemption of mankind. This is indeed how Ashley Kunsa views the portrayal of these characters as she believes, “we discover the seeds of the works unexpectedly optimistic worldview.” However, this is a contention with which I vehemently disagree. The Father and the boy, who are described metaphorically as those who are “carrying the fire” and “the good guys” appear to be moral characters who do not succumb to barbaric acts such as cannibalism. Yet, the impressive moral standard of the father and the boy simply provide a false illusion to the reader that there are those who can triumph in McCarthy’s truest test for optimism.