The Road Flashcards
What inspired The Road
post-9/11 world, reflecting fears of terrorism, climate change, and nuclear annihilation. The novel’s bleak, lawless world represents a loss of civilization.
The father and son struggle for survival in a desolate world
“Like the dying world, the newly blind moved about in the ashes.”
Constant fear of danger
“This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up.”
Cannibalism and the loss of morality
“He’s going to eat you, he said. He’s going to eat you and then he’s going to eat me.”
Potts
“hold the possibility to change the constitution of the world and break its putatively inherent trends of violence.”
9/11
a time when fears of terrorism, nuclear war, and societal collapse were heightened
Bush’s War on Terror
the invasion of Iraq (2003) fuelled concerns about global destruction.
The Cold War (1947–1991)
left a lasting fear of nuclear war, and The Road reads like the aftermath of a nuclear winter—a feared consequence of a nuclear holocaust.
How is the father described
“Pepper” always cautious, always carrying supplies, always suspecting danger. “You have to carry the fire.”
Bloom
“unrelenting in its despair”
Potts
“radical ethics”
