A Landscape of Fear: Cormac McCarthyâs The Road
in The Anti-LandscapeSearch for other papers by Ãyunn Hestetun in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Sofortzugang erwerben (PDF-Download und unbegrenzter Online-Zugang):
Sofortzugang erwerben (PDF-Download und unbegrenzter Online-Zugang):
Cormac McCarthyâs The Road (2006) features a dystopian vision of a post-cataclysmic world in which the physical environment has been turned into an anti-landscape and humans have turned to savagery. The story focuses on a father and son who are heading south in search for food and shelter, wandering through a wasteland that takes the contours of an inverted pastoral and Yi-fu Tuanâs âlandscape of fear.â A spark of hope is retained in the motif of the carriers of fire, suggesting that the novel could be defined as a critical dystopia, while it also alludes to other literary genres and modes, such as the road narrative, the parable, and the post-pastoral. This essay argues that the novel conveys an ecopoetic or ecodystopic sensibility that may sharpen our awareness of dependence on the world we inhabit, at the same time that it presents a meditation on metaphysical concerns.