Apocalyptic homework;

Part 1
1) what evidence is there that the setting of the road might have been the result of a nuclear war/disaster?
Throughout the book, various settings described denotes a very dark and empty society.
With the constant referring to the setting containing “ash” it allows the reader to question its overall impact on the book.
The use of ‘ash’ in the book enables the ideas of a bomb explosion, showing after the explosion occurred ash would have been released in the air, also to consider is the destruction it causes such as hitting a house releasing burnt materials.
Another example used is “watching the nameless dark come to enshroud them”, this point enables mccarthy to present the theme of ‘loneliness’ and allows the reader to consider whether this idea was considered by some deliberate act, this concluding the idea of a nuclear bomb, where people have had to go on there own route in life due to a desperation for survival.

2) if we assume we are reading the result of a nuclear war/disaster, what message(s) do you think might mccarthy be sending
Mccarthy establishes a variety of themes throughout the book which are able to reflect the mindsets of both the son and father.
The assumption that there was some form of nuclear war/disaster means the reader can question various conversations between the son and father, for example when the son asks his dad “Are we going to die”, this showing through the issues already occurring including scarce resources and high amount of death’s, life is an ‘uncertainty’ and the son feels that he is vulnerable to death and that he can die at any moment throughout the book.
Through Mccarthy presenting the mindsets of these characters, the reader is able to empathise

3) What is suggested by descriptions of scorned landscape. (quotation aswell)
As said earlier ‘The Road’ establishes these eerie and dark settings, so for land to be scorned the reader must take into account that for the land to be scorned, it must have been vulnerable to something extremely hot, this is for the reader to consider, this could be a spilling of a substance, the dropping of bombs or another type of disaster occurrence.
The impact on the book shows how just like the humans source of protection and hope, these landscapes have been deserted allowing the reader to understand the concept of life in the book at this time.
Through this quotation, the father is trying to load his son with the ideas and morals that he was once so familiar with in the ‘old world’.
He tries to tell his son how the other people are no longer good strangers through there committing of acts such as theft, murder and cannibalism, this plays a role throughout as the reader beguns to question how much of a ‘good man’ the dad is after murdering a stranger.

Part 2
When reading both ‘The road’ and ‘Wasteland’, the reader is able to automatically detect this very dull and depressing setting where society seems to have gone against its strong democratic and organised views which were once so crucial.
One outstanding point was in ‘Wasteland’ is when one line confirms “Unreal city” which relates so well to The road, which has these averse characteristics and make up such as constant murders, cannibals and the concept of ‘fighting till the death’, which goes against thus typical society through the events in the road that do occur, they are the opposite to vivid and really are only of a ‘Dystopia’.