During the presentation on Cormack McCarthy’s The Road, I was reminded of when I read the book in high school. It might have been the most depressing work I’ve ever read. I remember someone in class mentioning how the environment presented in The Road differs from everything else we’ve read: until now, every single work we have read refers to the environment in a positive light, it is always a force of good in the story. But in The Road, it is the enemy of the protagonists.
Obviously The Road is different from our other readings because it is a post-apocalyptic fiction. Our other readings are more based in reality than The Road. But does The Road paint the picture of how we might one day view the environment? If we pollute and destroy the Earth so badly, will the landscape eventually become our enemy, instead of a source of spiritual comfort like in Refuge?
I think it is important to realize that nature is not always beneficial. It will not always comfort us and help us, but may harm us in the case of natural disasters like hurricanes and floods. Although climate change may increase the effects of these natural disasters, they will always be a facet of nature. They remind us that the environment is something to be revered, respected, and understood. The Road is a reminder that the environment is ultimately more powerful than humanity. Even after we all die, the earth will still exist, but maybe not as it does now. Hopefully our negative influence on nature never reaches extreme proportions like in The Road.