Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

1. How do we balance the optimistic and pessimistic aspects of the book,

particularly the ending of the novel, given what has gone before?

2. What do you think is the point of all the religious references in the book?

3. Closely read the following passages in which women appear in the novel:

a. Pp. 57-60 The man remembers his wife’s suicide

b. Pp. 207-8 The pregnant woman
c. Pp. 306 The mother figure at the end of the book.

4. Can McCarthy be defended against criticism for his representation of women

using Cooper’s argument that the novel is exposing ‘the hypermasculine
nationalism of the US and subverting the nostalgia for traditional manhood
associated with “canticles of masculinity” in the US literary tradition’ (Cooper,
Modern Fiction Studies, p. 563)?