The Ash that Covers The Road

Dec 17, 2011 Ashlee Wenrick

The man in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” continues to tell his son, even though the man’s cough now contains blood, that he is going to be fine and he will never leave him. What is bringing about the blood in the man’s cough? The abundance of ash. Falling from the sky. Still on the ground. All around them, ash.

After everything from the man’s old life has disappeared, why is it that the one thing still remaining is the fate from lung disease? Every day people die of lung diseases from smoking cigarettes, but the man has no choice. He isn’t given the opportunity to put down the lighter and quit cold turkey, or to take nicotine to lower his need for the drug. His death is forced upon him. And just as many families try convincing their loved ones to stop shortening their life, the boy asks his father repeatedly, “are we going to die?” or “are you going to die?” though he already knows the answer.

Why does the man tell his son that he is not going to die even though he continuously sits up at night coughing up blood, waking his son in the dark? No one wants to admit that they are dying, especially not to their children. But could McCarthy’s symbolism for the ash go further than just being a cause of separation and barrenness?

With so many people given the choice to stop smoking and killing themselves, McCarthy chooses to force it upon the man:  in a post apocalyptic world, you do not get a choice. Maybe this is where McCarthy believes our world is headed today, and once it is no longer our world, we will not have the choice, but the instinct to protect our loved ones will not cease.