This is a story of the Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys and morality in a world that has none. It is an unforgiving world, that is gloomfully working towards the idea of literally being Beyond Good and Evil. There is no tangible God. Only systems of value (and in the world of The Road, even that is deteriorating quickly). At the end of the day, both Nietzsche and McCarthy believe that there is still something inherently valuable in their ideologically paralleled and lost versions of the world. For Nietzsche it was to be passionate, to live in the moment and to live artistically and for McCarthy it was to have hope and to live “artistically” in the moment in order to survive. (For McCarthy there definitely exists the art of survival. This is a topic for another blog.) For both of them this is all we really have. It is a choice about “how to live.” Either way (and for both of them) there is existential passion and hope despite the lack of reason. This is their middle ground and at the heart of this debate.
I had a dream that Nietzsche was McCarthy’s father. They were traveling down the road in a horse carriage prior to the apocalypse. Nietzsche looked down at his adorable little boy Cormac. Twirling his mustache he winked at Cormac and they both shared a moment, that was “in the moment” where they both knew better. Then the carriage stopped because one of the horses was acting like a fucking jackass. Nietzsche got out to find the carriage driver disgustedly whipping the horse. Nietzsche demanded him to stop and then he fell to knees breaking down into tears. Cormac watched from the window of the carriage and had a deeper idea of what it meant to be a good guy in a world that was Beyond Good and Evil. He knew that he would have to carry this fire into a more hopeless and bleak future.
- Thus Spoke Sam Zarathustra DeStefano
P.S. Does anyone have any good internet sources for professional literary criticism?
P.S.S. I would like to welcome Earthboy to the party. It’s good to have you Earthboy!
1 comment:
Well said, Sam, but what is really at the heart of McCarthy's will to survive? I think that, without the boy, the character would have given up at the same time as the mother.
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