"The Road" LRB #3

The Road

By Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy does not feature many minor characters; however, two are very pivotal to the meaning of the novel. Ely, the old, blind man, and the mother are the two most important minor characters introduced.

One would not think a prophet would exist in such peril times as this. Elijah, herald of the Messiah, who will return on the Day of Judgment, turns up as a destitute straggler who looks like “a pile of rags fallen off a cart,” and the boy insists on feeding him. He says his name is “Ely.” In one of the longest conversations in the novel the father talks to Ely about being the last man on earth and says that nobody would know it. When the man suggests the boy is a god, Ely says: “Where men can’t live gods fare no better. You’ll see. It’s better to be alone. So I hope that’s not true what you said because to be on the road with the last god would be a terrible thing. ... Things will be better when everybody’s gone.” As a kicker to his doom saying he adds that even death will die. “He’ll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He’ll say: Where did everybody go?” Ely’s cameo in the novel represents the doom which has consumed the earth. If one of the biblical prophets denies the existence of God, the readers know the end is almost near. McCarthy featured Ely to show that no one is exempt from their fate; one must face it and try not to crumble at its feet.

The mother is highlighted more than Ely; however, she and all the other women, where are painted in a different light. Anytime a woman is featured, their character causes some sort of disappointment to the reader (i.e. the women and daughter murdered in the forest, the mother, and the women attempting to murder Papa and the boy). The Mother is only included in flashback had by Papa. These flashbacks show their relationship before and after the apocalypse struck. She was everything to Papa; his true love. She, in a grief stricken manner, stormed out of her family’s life and forced them to go on without her, due to the only remaining two bullets (supposed to be used on Papa and the boy). Papa continuously blames the boy for causing his mother to leave; but he still has him, a piece of her, with him. That is why he cannot do the deed and same them both from the living hell they are in.

****I just want to take a minute to comment on McCarthy’s attitude toward women. In both novels NCFOM and The Road women are not portrayed as equals to men; they are conceived as weak (i.e. Carla Jean’s naivety and the mother’s abandonment)****