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America’s Future as a Wasteland in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2007)

Received: 3 August 2020     Accepted: 14 August 2020     Published: 30 October 2020
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Abstract

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road presents an awesome future vision of America as a wasteland. It predicts the American nightmare in the future. There is unknown catastrophe has ruined the earth and destroyed human civilization. McCarthy believes that human beings are constantly aware of the influence of nature on their lives in the form of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. Ecocriticism is an appropriate critical approach to The Road because there is a strong presence of nature and environment throughout his work; and because of the great influence of nature and environment on the thoughts and actions of the characters. All over the scenes of the novel from the very beginning till the end, the terrifying atmosphere dominates the events. McCarthy focuses only on the enmity of nature for human beings by looking at the negative side. He chooses to talk about American nightmare instead of American dream. He seems to warn the Americans not to feel safe all the time depending on what is called the American Dream which can be changed to American nightmare.

Published in Communication and Linguistics Studies (Volume 6, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11
Page(s) 65-72
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

McCarthy, The Road, Ecocriticism, Nature, Environment, Ecology, Setting, Wasteland, Nightmare

References
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    Radwan Gabr El-Sobky. (2020). America’s Future as a Wasteland in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2007). Communication and Linguistics Studies, 6(4), 65-72. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11

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    Radwan Gabr El-Sobky. America’s Future as a Wasteland in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2007). Commun. Linguist. Stud. 2020, 6(4), 65-72. doi: 10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11

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    AMA Style

    Radwan Gabr El-Sobky. America’s Future as a Wasteland in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2007). Commun Linguist Stud. 2020;6(4):65-72. doi: 10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11,
      author = {Radwan Gabr El-Sobky},
      title = {America’s Future as a Wasteland in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2007)},
      journal = {Communication and Linguistics Studies},
      volume = {6},
      number = {4},
      pages = {65-72},
      doi = {10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cls.20200604.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.cls.20200604.11},
      abstract = {Cormac McCarthy’s The Road presents an awesome future vision of America as a wasteland. It predicts the American nightmare in the future. There is unknown catastrophe has ruined the earth and destroyed human civilization. McCarthy believes that human beings are constantly aware of the influence of nature on their lives in the form of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. Ecocriticism is an appropriate critical approach to The Road because there is a strong presence of nature and environment throughout his work; and because of the great influence of nature and environment on the thoughts and actions of the characters. All over the scenes of the novel from the very beginning till the end, the terrifying atmosphere dominates the events. McCarthy focuses only on the enmity of nature for human beings by looking at the negative side. He chooses to talk about American nightmare instead of American dream. He seems to warn the Americans not to feel safe all the time depending on what is called the American Dream which can be changed to American nightmare.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Menoufeya University, Shebin El Kom, Egypt

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