Morales 1

Ashley Morales
English 113B
Professor Barnhart
December 14, 2015
Fighting Your Fears
Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave, (McCarthy 169) this quote
draws us in to a story where people are forced to contemplate life and death. In Cormac
McCarthys The Road, the role of life and death is reversed as we are pulled into an
apocalyptic world where the dead is living and the living is dead. Being only two of very
few people left on earth, a duo of father and son are surrounded by cannibals and
murderers; forced to live in fear for each others lives as they are left with nothing but
their memories of the way life used to be. The topic of life and death is greatly shown, as
the people alive are dead in the way that they are not fully living, and the dead are still
living throughout the memories and flashbacks of those still alive, similar to the way we
live today, as well as the anxiety of death and the fear of the unknown provoking the
father and son to embrace and give into their fears in order to continue to survive very
much like todays major headlines striking fear in todays society causing chaos to erupt all
around the world.
The Road is a dark novel that tells the story of a widowed father and his young
sons journey along the road attempting to make it down to the coast in search for safety
and stability. With little food, freezing climates, and bad guys, the fear of death is
inevitable and always lingering in the back of their minds. Encountering bad guys and
facing death in the face truly affected the way the man and young boy lived spiritually as

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well as physically and emotionally throughout the novel. Doing their best to avoid bad
guys they still had their occasional run-ins leaving them shaking with the fear for each
others life.
Their first incident being confronted with a diesel truck man who tries to take the
young boy hostage almost killing him, before the father takes serious action and shoots
the man in the head killing the diesel truck man instantly. The fathers first instinct
towards the diesel truck man was to pull a gun on him, presenting us with the fathers
fear of human contact and that humans true intention towards him and his son. The fear
the father had for the danger of his son forced him to take action the only way he knew
how; to save his sons life for the life of a strangers. The fear of death brought death upon
another. This shows us that the father would go to any lengths to protect his young son as
well as allowing us to look deeper into his biggest fear, his sons death. His fear for the
boys protection as well as his death and what it would be to live in a world without his
son is what allows him to keep on living. This major scene in the novel shows the
audience the father and sons deepest fears and anxieties of what facing death can look
like and makes them realize they are both on the border of living and dead.
To the normal person the fear or anxiety of death would be defined as being afraid
to die or fearing the death of another whither it may be a loved one or friend, but Cormac
McCarthy takes the fear of death to a whole other level. McCarthy allows us to uncover
our own fears and anxieties the further we read The Road. He allows us to analyze the
father and young sons anxieties and relate them to our everyday fears of life, death, and
the unknown. The fear of not being able to completely control a situation and not
knowing how something will end can drive the average person insane. You can prepare

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for the future, but you cant control it. Similar to the panic bunker the father and young
son stumbled upon; someone prepared and stocked up for an emergency such as an
apocalypse, but never had the chance to use the supplies for some unknown reason.
Anxiety sensitivity as well as intolerance of uncertainty are joined together as a
component of catastrophic misappraisal according to Anxiety Sensitivity and
Intolerance of Uncertainty meaning a wronged catastrophic event causes anxiety of
the unknown and uncertainty; this causes panic in ones self making someone scared for
the future. We can only assume the owners feared for an emergency as far as going to
creating a panic shelter pilled up high with supplies; their panic of uncertainty lead them
to suspect the worse. In the end these previous owners were just a few of the millions that
died in the world that is The Road.
The few people left living in the world throughout The Road in a way arent really
living. Yes they are alive, but they arent fully living. They are forced to live without
many things they were used to using in their everyday life, a life without a home or more
than one outfit or pair of shoes. While traveling on the road the father and son encounter
a man that goes by Ely, we later learn that is not his real name. Ely has a unique way of
looking at the life and the lifestyle they live. He saw the apocalypse coming, but still did
nothing to prepare for it as well as stating, nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to
leave. (McCarthy 169) He believes that people are not survivors, but only continuing to
live because they dont want to die. Ely allows us to look as life in a different way, rather
than living for someone else like the father and son, but to stay alive just linger for as
long as possible; to avoid death for one extra day.

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Avoiding death is impossible, as we know that death is an inevitable future we
must all face at some point the fear of death erupts, causing the cannibals in the novel to
do what ever necessary to continue living. If we were starving to death and the only way
to survive was to eat other humans, what should we do? This question from
Cannibalism: From Sacrifice to Survival allows us to look at the point of view of
surviving in the life as a cannibal. We uncover the physiological standpoints of a cannibal
similar to the cannibals in The Road; the cannibals are first forced to eat others because of
a famine just like the novel. Its survival or starvation. To a cannibal, survival of ones self
is their number one goal, even if they have to sacrifice specific morals to do so. They kill
and eat other human beings to stay alive for another day. Like something out of a horror
film, the father and son are confronted with cannibals all throughout their journey on the
road, but one event really opened their eyes that escalated their fear of death as they are
faced with a different kind of death. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the
hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous. (McCarthy
110) The father and sons encounter with the cannibal house leaves them scared for their
lives so much after the father gives the young son his gun and tells him to shoot himself if
necessary to avoid being tortured like the others in the basement of the cannibal house.
Telling his young son to commit suicide rather than fearing life, being trapped, and facing
death in the cannibal house is the young boys only way out. This form of fear leads the
boy to ultimately kill himself if need be; the topic of suicide brings a touching subject for
the man and the boy throughout the novel.
We learn in the fathers flashback that the mother of the young boy commits
suicide to avoid living in a world being raped and tortured for the rest of her life. Her fear

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of living overcame her and she couldnt handle the unknown of her and her familys fate.
We can relate the mothers situation on fear of the unknown as well as fear of life and
death resulting in suicide to a study in U.S. Army troops suicide. U.S. Army Troops are
frightened and shaken with the thought of heading off to war and cant handle the fear of
the unknown leaving them anxious as they think of no way out, resulting in suicide.
Army STARRS study can help prevent and avoid future suicides by using data from
active as well as pre-deployed troops mental health statistics. This research allows us to
look at the mothers death in a new way similar to the way U.S. Army Troops think on the
spot, showing us the mothers final decision as her only option of a fearing world.
Although suicide was the only way out for the mother in The Road, we as a society can
help prevent suicide in lowering death anxiety by showing people to live life.
Going back to the novel, Cormac McCarthy also allows the fear of the unknown
to work in the father and sons favor throughout their journey. They both fear the
unknown, but know they both need to embrace their fear in order to continue to survive.
They fear the unknown of what might be hiding in the houses they search and ramble
through. They end up taking a chance on the bunker and end up feeling like they won the
lottery, and regain the little hope they had to survive. The father also finally embraced his
fear of leaving his son as he approached death facing a deathly illness that eventually
took his life, leaving the young boy. The Road ended with the father dying leaving his
young son all alone, until he finds a new family, the novel ends on a slightly hopeful note,
despite the situation. The novel is a dark journey throughout the whole book; we get a
glimpse of hope as the boy gets a somewhat happy ending. We dont exactly know the

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fate of the young boy as he joins this other family, but thats Cormac McCarthy way of
telling the readers that you never know what will happen one last time.
Cormac McCarthy takes us on an emotional roller coaster as we follow along side
the father and young son as they are encountered with starvation, cannibals, deathly
illness, and so much in between. The father and son continue on for as long as they can
by each others side facing challenging situations, and embracing as well as overcoming
obstacles the pair survive through it all together. Their fears are caused by one another,
making sure the other is safe and secure, but their fears are also forgotten because of one
another. The father and son comfort as well as reassure each other in time of need, after a
nightmare or overcoming a traumatic experience. The father and son protect one another;
the father protects the young boy and shields him away the bad in the world to limit his
fears and protect him from outside dangers as much as possible.
The Road is like your biggest fear becoming a reality. The reality of losing
everything you ever had, your only family dying right in front of you and you have no
way but to continue on without them. Cormac McCarthy lets us imagine these fears and
tie them to our real word realities, making us ask our selves if we are prepared and ready
to handle such a life altering apocalyptic event. Are we prepared to live in a world full of
death and despair? The unknown is inevitably uncertain, but we can limit our fears and
anxieties by staying hopeful during the challenging process. The father and young son
couldnt control what happened to them, but they could control how they reacted to the
life altering incidents, they kept even the slightest bit of hope in the darkest situations as
well as confrontations. Their anxieties of life and death as well as their fear of the
unknown and uncertainty didnt stop them from doing what ever necessary to protect one

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another and continuing to survive for as long as possible. In Cormac McCarthys The
Road the anxiety of uncertainty as well as the fear of life and death drives the father and
young son to carry on not just for each other, but to see what fate has in store and what
the future holds for them and the world as a whole.

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Work Cited

Ursano, Robert. "The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Service
Members (Army STARRS)." Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes

77.2 (2014). General OneFile. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.

Asmundson, Gordon J.G., R. Nicholas Carleton, and Donald Sharpe. "Anxiety
sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty: requisites of the fundamental fears?"
Behaviour Research and Therapy 45.10 (2007). Page: 2307. General OneFile.

Web. 2 Oct. 2015.

The Road. Cormac McCarthy. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.
Baker, Robert A. "Cannibalism: From Sacrifice to Survival." Skeptical Inquirer
Nov.-Dec. 1995: 49+. General OneFile. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.