Environment - The Road - Blog Entry 4

"They pushed out through the back door, the boy hanging on to him. He shoved the
pistol in his belt and stood looking out over the yard. There was a brick walkway
and the twisted and wiry shape of what once had been a row of boxwoods. In the
yard was an old iron harrow propped up on piers of stacked brick and someone had
wedged between the rails of it a forty gallon castiron cauldron of the kind once used
for rendering hogs. Underneath were the ashes of a fire and blackened billets of
wood. Off to one side a small wagon with rubber tires. All these things he saw and
did not see. At the far side of the yard was an old wooden smokehouse and a
toolshed. He crossed half dragging the child and went sorting through tools standing
in a barrel under the shed roof. He came up with a longhandled spade and hefted it in
his hand. Come on, he said.
Back in the house he chopped at the wood around the haspstaple and finally jammed
the blade under the staple and pried it up. It was bolted through the wood and the
whole thing came up lock and all. He kicked the blade of the shovel under the edge
of the boards and stopped and got his lighter out. Then he stood on the tang of the
shovel and raised the edge of the hatch and leaned and got hold of it. Papa, the boy
whispered.
He stopped. Listen to me, he said. Just stop it. We're starving. Do you
understand? Then he raised the hatch door and swung it over and let it down on the
floor behind.
Just wait here, he said.
I'm going with you.
I thought you were scared.
I am scared.
Okay. Just stay close behind me.
He started down the rough wooden steps. He ducked his head and then flicked the
lighter and swung the flame out over the darkness like an offering. Coldness and
damp. An ungodly stench. The boy clutched at his coat. He could see part of a
stone wall. Clay floor. An old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped
down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people,
male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. 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.
Jesus, he whispered.
Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they
whispered. Please help us." (page 56)



Starving and in desperate need for food, shelter, and water, the boy and his father continue down the road and come across an abandoned house. Inside the father discovers a locked trapdoor and eventually breaks the lock and ventures into the darkness. In this cellar the father and son discover a man and a woman cowering in the corner of the room frightened for their lives, while a badly burnt and legless man lays on a mattress.

This passage seemed to be filled with symbolism. The locked cellar represents the needed protection from the dangers of the outside world. The darkness of the cellar represents the same darkness that covers the world from the fires and destruction that nearly killed it. The people inside, desperate for help represents the cost of humans mistreating and damaging the environment. It only kills us in the end. These depictions about the future reveal that we are slowly approaching the possibility of humans throwing ourselves into an apocalyptic and dead world with the rate at which we burn through fuel and treat the environment as if it were our own personal dumpster.

The way Cormac McCarthy uses imagery to bring detail to the events truly makes it easier to grasp the idea of how terrifying the possibility of this future can be. The horrid smell, gore and darkness about it all acts as a warning to prevent the environment's health from plummeting.