Introduction:
My
thesis’ focus is on the novel The Road
by Cormac McCarthy. Specifically in the novel I am hoping to analyze the role
and portrayal of the only named female character, known as The Woman. Through
my research I hope to be able to demonstrate that while traditionally this
female character is read as being a weak figure who is only included to show
the strength and heroics of the main male character, The Man. I hope to show
through my data and research that the Woman is actually a very strong and
insightful female character who’s strengths are generally read as weaknesses
only because of the readers preconceived notions of what being a mother and
female means.
Literature Review:
The
novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
tells of the grueling struggles of a father and son in a post-apocalyptic
world. Throughout the entire novel there is a surprisingly few number of female
characters. The only female character who is highlighted at all throughout the
novel is “the Woman”, who like the rest of the characters in the novel remains
unnamed besides this descriptive title. The Woman is the wife to “the Man” and
mother to “the Boy”. Many scholars argue that the role of the Woman in this
novel is to represent weakness and defeat, and that she is a feeble, uncaring,
and selfish character. But after reading the novel and many scholarly articles
about the novel I believe that the women serves a much larger purpose. The
Woman is a character who is willing to do whatever it takes to save her child
and although, in the end is unsuccessful she does not leave before assuring
that her child will be cared for.
In Berit Astrom’s article “Post-Feminist
Fatherhood and the Marginalization of the Mother in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road” Astrom argues that throughout
the novel “the man is both the better father and the better mother” (Astrom
121). The main argument of this article is that “In The Road, the mother
refuses to fulfil such expectations. Interestingly, this challenge to normative
constructions of mother hood is represented as wholly negative within the
novel” (Astrom 115). After reading the novel I would argue that the Woman
should not be read as an entirely bad or weak character. Astrom argues that the
Woman is only included in the text briefly to demonstrate that she has “been absent from the boy’s life even
before she left physically” (Astrom 122) because of her fall into despair and
then her suicide. While the Woman does leave the Boy she does this because she believes
that death is the only and best option left for her family. The Woman sees no
way to survive long term in the environmental landscape which the novel takes
place. Readers only read the Woman as being a weak character because of readers’
tendency to read her character as being a direct foil to the Man. Many read the
Man’s fight for survival as noble and as a critique of the Woman’s actions.
Astrom tries to convey to readers that the Man represents everything that the
Woman fails to be for the Boy.
Astrom argues throughout the article
that the Woman is portrayed “as callous and heartless” (Astrom 120) in the
novel and this leads readers to interpret the character to be a fail as representation
of a mother figure. But just because the Woman does not fit into the
traditional mold of the pure and virtuous mother does not mean that she is a
bad mother or is being used to depict women in the novel as being less virtuous
than the male characters. In The
Technology of Gender by Teresa De Lauretis the author discusses the role of
gender and how those roles are outwardly portrayed. De Lauretis acknowledges
“that gender is not sex, a state of nature, but the representation of each
individual in terms of a particular social relation which pre-exists the individual
and is predicated on the conceptual and rigid (structure) opposition of two
biological sexes. This conceptual structure is what feminist social scientists
have designated “the sex-gender system” (De Lauretis 716). This sex-gender
system is made clear throughout the novel. Astrom also argues that the Woman is
used as the direct foil to the Man, who is portrayed as a strong, virtuous
father figure. In this article De Lauretis holds that “where sexual division
refers to the two mutually exclusive categories of men and women as given in
reality: “In terms of sexual differences, on the other hand, what has to be
grasped is, precisely, the production of differences through systems of
representation; the work of representation produces differences that cannot be
known in advance” (De Lauretis 717). Asserting that the Woman is the foil
character to the Man is problematic because it is based on the assumption that
the Woman fails to conform to her prescribed gender role as mother. I would
argue that the Man’s foil character is not the Woman, but instead another
character known as the Gang Member. Many would argue that the Woman fails as a
female character because she does not fit the traditional definition of a good
mother. Through her suicide they would argue she fails at protecting her young
child, but the discussion between the Woman and the Man show that her suicide
was not a selfish decision, but the only way she could see to escape the brutal
reality she and her family were facing. This novel presents the reader with an
extremely graphic representation of the end of the world and the way each
person responds in times of crisis varies. The Woman and the Man responded
differently to the world and in the end the Man failed as well.
One
of the main issues with the argument presented by Astrom is that throughout the
article the Woman character is constantly compared to the Man character.
Astrom’s analysis of the Woman is based on comparing the two characters and
finding sexual differences. In “The Practice of Feminist Theory” by Elizabeth
Grosz the author discusses what she believes to be the current state and issues
that feminist theory in literature faces. Grosz holds that “feminist theory is
the labor, the practice, of thinking and locating what is other than patriarchy,
what is more than it or beyond it, known and active, able to act and be acted
on. Feminist theory is the labor of producing new thought beyond patriarchal
concepts, above all, elaborating the thought of sexual difference where it has
been foreclosed – in all knowledges up to now, in all forms of thought that
pretend to universal and perspectiveless relevance” (Grosz 105). Throughout
Astrom’s article the author reads the Road as providing a commentary on
patriarchal concepts that is based on sexual difference and literary foils. The
idea of sexual difference is highly problematic because it is based on the idea
that there is a standard for sexuality and gender and then there is the
difference. Astrom analyzes the Woman character as if all female literary
characters are the same and that they all conform to all established
patriarchal concepts of what it means to be a good mother and strong female
character. Throughout Astrom’s article the author holds that the Woman is the
foil character to the Man character. In this foil Astrom is holding that the
Man is the strong character and fills the void that is created by the Woman in
the Boy’s life.
Another issue that arises from
Astom’s traditionalist analysis of the role of the mother and how the Woman plays
this role is that this role was created in a hierarchical structure that is
based on masoginistic ideals. In “Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of
Interruption” by Lisa Baraitser the reader is introduced to the idea that
“feminist mothers challenge patriarchal and heteronormative concepts of
mothering, creating alternatives that transform the lives of mothers and
children, and in the process changing the meaning of both mothering and
feminism” (Baraitser 701) and the idea that “feminism and motherhood have often
been thought of as incompatible” (Baraitser 703). Motherhood is not and should
not be viewed as a universal experience. Astrom desires to categorize all
motherhood and what it means to be a “good” mother. Although the Woman does not
fit into the traditional mold of what Astrom considers to be a “good” mother
she does fit the feminist mold of what it means to be a good mother in the
post-apocalyptic, violent world that the novel is set.
Another
important theme and plot point in The Road is cannibalism. In this
post-apocalyptic world most food sources are gone so survivors have turned to
cannibalism in order to survive. In Capital
by Karl Marx the author discusses commodities and the process of
commodification. Marx argues that “A commodity is, in the first place, an
object outside us, that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or
another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the
stomach or form fancy, makes no difference” (Marx 268). In the novel, before
the Woman decides to commit suicide she discusses her fears of being eaten. It
is important to analyze the reasons for the Woman’s suicide because in the
novel the characters have been placed in an unimaginable position. The commodification
of the human body as a food source drove the woman to her decision. Astrom
argues that because she left her son she is a selfish and a bad mother. But the
Woman understood that the human body was now a highly valuable commodity for
many different reasons and knew that her family and their bodies would be
victims of the cannibals that surrounded them.
In
“Eating at the Empire Table: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Anglo-Irish Gothic” by Lydia Cooper the author
argues that “McCarthy paints a viciously dark picture of utter loss” (Cooper)
throughout the novel. This article argues that “The Road is replete with images
of consumption, from evocations of a fossil fuel-driven economy to depictions
of cannibalism, the form of consumption most commonly employed as a shorthand
for unchecked cultural depravity or the breakdown of civilized society
altogether” (Cooper). This “unchecked cultural depravity” is part of the reason
the Woman felt that there was no hope for either her or her family, especially
the Boy. The novel presents a world that is so forsaken and destroyed that
people have turned on each other and actively hunt each other down for food.
Throughout the novel the reader sees many people that have been driven to
cannibalism and sees how hard the Man and the Boy fight against cannibalism.
The reader sees the Woman struggle with accepting this new world reality and
how much strongly she wishes for her son to not have to experience the horrors
around him.
Method:
My only source of data
was the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I first read this
novel as assigned reading my Sophomore year of high school and before collecting
data for my thesis I re-read the novel. After re-reading I chose my overall thesis
argument and then skimmed the novel again to find supporting evidence. When
skimming the novel I focused on finding scenes and quotes that related to the
Woman character as my thesis argument focuses on the way she is portrayed
throughout the novel. I used these quotes to support my argument that the Woman
was, in fact, a good mother who only did what she believed to be best for her
child. I also skimmed the novel for quotes that related to the new state of the
world in the novel. Finding quotes about the devastation of the world helped to
support my argument that the Woman’s state of mind and actions in the novel
were reasonable given her circumstances. Finding quotes about the violent,
awful world that surrounded the Woman helped to support my argument that the
Woman believed an awful, horrific death for the Boy was inevitable and she only
wished to save him from the horror that surrounded him and that was his fate.
After reading the novel I was surprised by the number of times the word grey
was used to describe the setting and so I chose to count and then chart the
number of times this word is used. I decided to include this data to reinforce
the idea that the world has become a truly terrible place that the Woman wishes
to save her child from.
Analysis:
So
far in my data research I have used several important quotes from the novel to
support my proposed thesis. There are any significant quotes in the novel but one
of the most important quotes I have included in my data is “Sooner or later
they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him.
They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it. You’d
rather wait for it to happen. But I can’t. I can’t” (McCarthy 56). This quote
is dialogue spoken by the Woman and expresses to the reader the internal
thoughts and feelings that the Woman was experiencing in the novel before
committing suicide. This quote is significant because it demonstrates to the
reader that before her suicide the Woman was thinking about what was best for
both her child and herself. The Woman knew the fate that awaited her family if
they continued on in the harsh cannibalistic environment that surrounded them
and she did not want to have to witness that horrific fate befall anyone that
she loved. In this passage the reader learns that the Woman wants to take the
child with her but after discussion with the Man who does not agree with her
decision she leaves without the child. After this passage the reader learns
that the Woman has decided to take her own life because she knew she would be
unable to bear to witness and endure the possible horrific end that she
believed awaited the family. Many argue that the Woman made a selfish decision
to leave her family, but this passage shows that in this extremely violent and
hopeless environment that surrounded her she believed that this decision was
the only decision that could save her son from being the victim of rape and
cannibalism and was in fact a decision that the Woman made by having her
child’s best interest in mind. Although many critics read the Man as the true
hero and strong character in the novel because of his drive to fight for his
son’s survival throughout the novel the reader comes to understand that the
Man’s desire to keep the Boy alive is made out of selfishness. At one point in
the novel the Boy asks his father “What would you do if I died?” (McCarthy 11)
and the Man responds by saying “If you died I would want to die too” (McCarthy
11). This shows that really the Man just doesn’t want to be without the Boy.
Later in the novel the Woman tells the Man “The one thing I can tell you is
that you won’t survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come
this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some
passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love.
Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body” (McCarthy
57). In this passage the Woman is telling the Man that she knows that he is
only insisting on the Boy living because to be able to survive in this
environment you need to have someone else to survive for. The Woman states that
she knows this to be true because she “would never have come this far”
(McCarthy 57). The Woman knows that the Man needs the Boy to live in order to
continue on his hopeless quest to survive. Without the Boy the Man would be unable
to find the drive to continue existing.
Conclusion:
Through my literature review and my
analysis I hopefully have been able to demonstrate that there is enough
evidence to support my thesis. As I continue to work on my thesis in the future
I will hopefully be able to find more evidence from the novel and from outside
resources to support my argument. I am currently working on researching more
feminist theories that will hopefully be useful in analyzing the Woman
character.
Works Cited
Berit Astrom (2018) Post-Feminist
Fatherhood and the Marginalization of the Mother in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road,
Women: A Cultural Review, 29:1, 112-128, DOI: 10.1080/09574042.2018.1425539
Cooper, Lydia. “Eating at the
Empire Table: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Anglo-Irish Gothic.” MFS:
Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 63, no. 3, 2017, pp. 547-570. EBSCOhost,
bulldogs.tlu.edu:2048/login?url=http;//search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017400380&site=eds-live&scope=site.
De
Lauretis, Teresa. “The Technology of Gender”. Pp. 713-721.
Grosz, Elizabeth. “The Practice of
Feminist Theory.” Difference: A Journal
of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2010, pp. 94-108. EBSCOhost,
bulldogs.tlu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=msh&AN=2010641280&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Longhurst, Robyn. “Maternal
Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption. By Lisa Baraitser and Feminist
Mothering in Theory and Practice, 1985-1995: A Study in Transformative
Politics. By FIONA JOY GREEN and Feminist Art and the Maternal. By ANDREA
LISS.” Hypatia, vol. 25, no. 3,
Summer 2010, pp. 696-703. EBSCOhost,
bulldogs.tlu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=66399461&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Marx,
Karl. “Capital”. Pp. 268-275.
