In The Road by Cormac McCarthy the two main characters are a man and a boy. The man and the boy are starting to get desperate. They have been living for about 6 years in a world that is completely burned and turned to ash. They survive by scavenging non perishable food from burnt towns and cities, but it is getting hard to find anything. They are not the only survivors. The "bad guys" have taken to cannibalism to survive. They roam the streets in packs and carry their human prisoners, or food, with them as they go.
A full summary of The Road can be found here.
One day the man and the boy come across a house that clearly has people living in it but appears to be empty at the moment. Having had nothing to eat in s few days the man decides to take and chance and go inside to try and find food. He finds a locked cellar door hoping it is a food storage place. He and the boy walk inside and this is what they find;
"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 clinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us."
He was right, it was a food storage place, just not the kind of food he was hoping for. As the man and the boy are leaving they see four men and two women walking through a field toward the house. They run as fast as they can to avoid being eaten.
I want to focus on the cannibals. What drove them to cannibalism? In my opinion it was fear. They were so afraid to die that they decided to eat other human beings to survive. To me this shows what a powerful force fear can be on our lives. There's even a saying "don't let fear rule your life". I think in this case the cannibals allowed fear to rule their lives. They gave up their morals due to fear. They torment other people just so that they can survive. In this case it was the fear of death that caused the four men and two women to become cannibals.
Or does fear make us more prone to survival? The cannibals seem to be more scared than the man and the boy, and they also seem to be faring better. Maybe without morals, but they aren't as close to death.
ReplyDeleteI like how you analyze what drove the cannibals to do what they are instead of just assuming that they're evil people. Because I agree people aren't born evil these people aren't trying to be evil they were just molded by their fear of death and gave up their morals. In my opinion life becomes a lot harder to live without morals!
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ReplyDeleteWell if you're in a situation like these people are in this fictional world, wouldn't it be natural to resort to your primal instincts to get food rather than it be for the sole purpose of fear? Any animal's natural instinct is to sleep, eat, drink, etc, and humans are definitely exempt from this. Since it appears that most domesticated forms of food are extinct (noted from when the man mentions that cows are extinct), it's almost as if humans are not on top of the food chain anymore and are level with any other animal. While I do a agree that these people have a fear of starving and dying, I feel this is a natural response to a survival situation and is not the reason the humans are cannibalizing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people are acting like animals when they are no longer at the top of the food chain. I just have to wonder, do animals cannibalize each other when they run out of food or are super hungry? If so you're right this may be a natural response, but either way it clearly shows that these people have lost their humanity and their morals.
DeleteWe're animals at the core. In this sort of situation, it's just heavily emphasized.
DeleteI agree that the fear of death overcame the cannibals' morals. I also think people aren't born evil, but they may grow used to tormenting others or even enjoy having power over others, without consciously thinking that they are only resorting to cannibalism to survive.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a really interesting how you propose the cannibalism and how fear can drive them to it.
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