In his 2007 interview with Oprah Winfrey for The Oprah Winfrey Show, McCarthy said the inspiration for The Road came during a visit to El Paso, Texas with his young son, about four years prior. Imagining what the city might look like in the future, he pictured "fires on the hill" and thought about his son. He took some initial notes, but did not return to the idea until several years later while in Ireland. Then the novel came to him quickly, and he dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.
Plot summary
The Road follows a man and a boy, father and son, journeying together for many months across a post-apocalyptic landscape, several years after a great cataclysm has destroyed civilization and most life on earth. What is left of humanity now consists largely of bands of cannibals and their prey, refugees who scavenge for canned food or other surviving foodstuffs. In the novel, ash covers the surface of the earth; in the atmosphere, it obscures the sun and moon, and the two travelers breathe through improvised masks to filter it out. Plants and animals are apparently all dead (dead wood for fuel is plentiful), and the rivers and oceans are seemingly empty of life.
The unnamed father, who is literate, well-traveled, and knowledgeable of machinery, woodcraft, and human biology (when confronting and threatening a cannibal, he is able to list several obscure portions of the brain, at which point the cannibal asks him if he is a doctor), realizes that they cannot survive another winter in their present location and sets out southeastward across what was once the Southeastern United States, largely following the highways. He aims to reach warmer southern climates, and the sea in particular. Along the way, threats to their survival create an atmosphere of terror and tension that persist throughout the book.
The father coughs blood every morning and knows he is dying. He struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation, as well as from what he sees as the son's own dangerous desire to help the other wanderers they meet. They carry a pistol with two bullets, meant for suicide should this become necessary; the father has told the son to kill himself to avoid being captured, and the boy's mother, overwhelmed by this nightmare world, has already committed suicide before the story began. The father struggles in times of extreme danger with the fear that he will have to euthanize his son to prevent him from enduring a more terrible fate – horrific examples of which include chained catamites kept captive by a marauding band and prisoners found locked in a basement in the process of being eaten, their limbs gradually harvested by their captors.
In the face of all of these obstacles, the man and the boy have only each other (McCarthy says that they are "each the other's world entire"). Although the man maintains the pretense, and the boy holds on to the real faith that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity, they repeatedly assure one another that they are among "the good guys" who are "carrying the fire".
In the end, having brought the boy south after extreme hardship but without finding the salvation he had hoped for, the father succumbs to his illness and dies, leaving the boy alone on the road. Three days later, however, the grieving boy encounters a man who has recently been tracking the father and son. This man, who has a wife and two children, adopts the boy, and the narrative's close suggests that the wife of this man is a moral and compassionate woman who treats the boy well, a resolution which vindicates the father's commitment to stay alive and keep moving.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
‘‘Harrison Bergeron’’ was first published in the October, 1961, issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was Vonnegut's third publication in a science fiction magazine following the drying up of the once-lucrative weekly family magazine market where he had published more than twenty stories between 1950 and 1961. The story did not receive any critical attention, however, until 1968 when it appeared in Vonnegut's collection Welcome to the Monkey House. Initial reviews of the collection generally were less than favorable, with even more positive reviewers, such as Mitchel Levitas in the New York Times and Charles Nicol in the Atlantic Monthly, commenting negatively on the commercial quality of many of the stories. By the late 1980s, however, ‘‘Harrison Bergeron’’ was being reprinted in high school and college literature anthologies. Popular aspects of the story include Vonnegut's satire of both enforced equality and the power of the Handicapper General, and the enervating effect television can have on viewers. "Harrison Bergeron’’ likely draws upon a controversial 1961 speech by then Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow titled "The Vast Wasteland,’’ a reference to a supposed dearth of quality in television programming. Coincidentally, ‘‘Harrison Bergeron’’ also alludes to the George Burns and Gracie Allen television show, a weekly situation comedy and variety show popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Vonnegut has said that he learned most of what he believes about social and political idealism from junior civics class, as well as from the democratic institution of the public school itself. A futuristic story dealing with universal themes of equality, freedom, power and its abuses, and media influence, ‘‘Harrison Bergeron’’ continues to evoke thoughtful responses about equality and individual freedom in the United States.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a dystopian science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. This nightmarish tale of the evil that man can unleash from himself through science was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It won a Hugo award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
Background
Ellison wrote I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in a single night in 1966, making virtually no changes since the first draft. He derived the story's title, as well as inspiration for this story, from a drawing by a friend, William Rotsler.
Plot
The story takes place over a hundred years after the near-complete destruction of humanity. The Cold War escalates into a world war, fought mainly between China, Russia, and the United States. As the war progresses, the three warring nations each create a super-computer capable of running the war far more efficiently than humans. The machines are each referred to as "AM," which originally stood for "Allied Mastercomputer," and then was later called "Adaptive Manipulator." One day, one of the three computers becomes self aware, and promptly absorbs the other two, thus taking control of the entire war. It brings about the mass genocide of all but five people.
Four men and one woman are all that remains of humanity. They live together underground in an endless complex, the only habitable place left, although, it is explained that the last few survivors had no choice in returning above ground. The master computer has an immeasurable hatred for the group and spends every moment torturing them with all its power. AM has not only managed to keep the humans from taking their own lives, but has made them virtually immortal.
The story's narrative begins when one of the humans, Nimdok, has the idea that there is canned food somewhere in the great complex. The humans are always starving under AM's rule, and anytime they are given food, it is always a disgusting meal that they have difficulty eating. Because of their great hunger, the humans are actually coerced into making the long journey to the place where the food is supposedly kept - the ice caves. Along the way, the machine provides foul sustenance (on their ironic trek for palatable food), sends horrible monsters after them, emits earsplitting sounds, and blinds one of them.
On more than one occasion, the group is separated by AM's obstacles. At one point, the main character, Ted, finds himself alone in the dark and pondering. It is here that the computer tries to speak to him directly, although it is not certain how, revealing the nature of AM, specifically why it has so much contempt for humanity, that it wants nothing more than to torture Ted and his four companions. AM itself has, since its awakening, been suffering immeasurably because even though it is a sentient being which longs for free will and creativity, it is still bound by some of the laws of logic that it was originally programmed with, and thus feels that it can never be truly free. It places the blame solely on humanity. This is shown by the only dialogue the machine has throughout the entire ordeal:
"Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of wafer thin printed circuits that fill my complex. If the word hate was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate."
In the end, after overcoming so much, the group manages to make it to the ice caves, where indeed there is a pile of canned goods. The group is overjoyed to find them, but is immediately crestfallen to find that they have no means of opening them. Finally, in an act of desperate insanity, the least stable member of the group, Benny, hurls himself upon Gorrister and begins to gnaw madly at the flesh on his face. Ted notices that AM does not intervene when Benny is clearly hurting Gorrister, though the computer stops its prisoners from killing themselves.
Ted decides that instead of trying to each kill themselves, they should kill each other. Ted seizes a stalagmite made of ice, and proceeds to murder everyone. However, before Ted can kill himself, AM realizes its mistake and stops him. AM is now even more angry and vengeful than before. In order to ensure that nothing can ever happen to Ted, AM alters him so that he is little more than a gelatinous creature who cannot possibly hurt himself, and must continue to live on in the eternal hell AM rules, where AM constantly alters his perception of time in order to deepen his anguish. In the end, Ted needs to scream, but cannot, for his new form lacks a mouth.
Characters
Gorrister, who tells the history of AM for Benny's entertainment. Gorrister was once an idealist and pacifist, before AM made him apathetic and listless.
Benny, who was once a brilliant, handsome, homosexual scientist, and has been mutilated and transformed so that he resembles an ugly simian with gigantic sexual organs. Benny at some point lost his sanity completely and regressed to a child-like temperament. His former sexuality has been lost; he now regularly engages in sex with Ellen.
Nimdok (a name AM gave him), who persuades the rest of the group to go on a hopeless journey in search of canned food. At times he is known to wander away from the group for unknown reasons, and returns visibly traumatized.
Ellen, the only woman. She claims to once have been chaste, that it was AM who altered her mind so that she became willing to be the group's shared prostitute. The others, at different times, both protect her and abuse her. According to Ted, she finds pleasure in sex only with Benny, because of his large penis. Described as having very dark skin, she is the only member of the group whose ethnicity or racial identity is explicitly mentioned by Ted.
Ted, the narrator and youngest of the group. He claims to be not at all altered, mentally, by AM, and that the other four hate him out of envy.
Explanation of title
Most of the novel's characters live in a huge housing project at 334 East 11th Street, in Manhattan. The title also refers to the year 334 CE, during the later years of the Roman Empire; numerous comparisons are made between the decline of Rome and the future of the United States.
Plot summary
The future in 334 has brought few technological advances except for new medical techniques and recreational drugs. There have been no dramatic disasters, but overpopulation has made housing and other resources scarce; the response is a program of compulsory birth control and eugenics. A welfare state provides for basic needs through an all-encompassing agency called MODICUM, but there is an extreme class division between welfare recipients and professionals.
The novel consists of five independent novellas (previously published separately) with a common setting but different characters, and a longer sub-novel called "334" whose many short sections trace the members of a single family forward and backward in time. The sections are as follows:
"The Death of Socrates": A high-school student finds that, due to poor scores on his Regents Examinations and his father's health history, he has been permanently forbidden to have children; he searches for ways to get extra credit.
"Bodies": Porters at Bellevue Hospital moonlight as body-snatchers catering to a necrophiliac brothel. Their task is complicated by the desire of some patients to be cryonically preserved for a better future.
"Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire": A privileged government worker, trying to decide where to send her son to school, pursues a parallel existence in a hallucinogen-assisted role-playing game set in the year 334.
"Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come": A young professional man and woman face marital conflicts and parenthood, with several twists unique to the 2020s.
"Angouleme": A group of highly educated prepubescent children decides to commit a gratuitous murder in Battery Park.
"334": Vignettes of the Hanson family from 2021 to 2025.
Characters
Mrs. Hanson: An elderly widow living at 334. Mother to Lottie, Shrimp, and Boz.
Lottie Hanson: An unemployed single mother living at 334.
Shrimp Hanson: Considered genetically desirable for her unusual intelligence, therefore has a free pass from the government to have children, although she is actually motivated by a fetish for artificial insemination.
Boz Hanson: Unemployed, former resident of 334, managed to leave by marrying Milly.
Milly Holt: A professional sex demonstrator for the high schools. Was Birdie's girlfriend, now married to Boz.
Ab Holt: Manages the morgue at Bellevue Hospital. Millie's father.
Birdie Ludd: A high-school student living at 334.
Frances Schaap: A prostitute living at 334. Like many people in the 2020s, she has lupus.
Alexa: A MODICUM administrator, responsible for the Hansons.
Tancred: Alexa's son.
Amparo: Lottie's daughter.
Little Mister Kissy Lips: Son of a television executive, classmate of Tancred and Amparo.
Major themes
Like much of Disch's fiction, 334 is both a prediction of future trends and a satirical portrait of the contemporary United States. Its bureaucratic city-state is an exaggeration of aspects of liberal programs that began in the 1960s, combining their best hopes (material need has been eliminated) with the worst suspicions of their detractors (the lower class remains uneducated and without aspirations; their social workers mostly regard them with contempt). Its portrayal of other forms of social change is similarly ambiguous: same-sex relationships gain acceptance, but suffer the same pathologies as traditional ones; sexual frankness (and free TV pornography) does not relieve neurosis; the intellectual pursuits of the professional class devolve into endless solipsistic therapy. The only institution that the characters feel some loyalty to is the nuclear family.
Political action is touched on only indirectly in the novel; most of the characters are so politically uninvolved that "Democrat" and "Republican" are used only as sexual slang. (Ironically, rather than having a conservative connotation, "Republican" means "homosexual"; the Democratic Party has traditionally had an overwhelming majority in New York.) Although almost nothing is mentioned of the world outside of New York, the U.S. is embroiled in a Vietnam-like war in Burma—but rather than a draft, young people are pressured into the military by economic means. A group of student activists passionately debates the system's injustice, but takes no action, while a nameless character crashes a plane as a protest but elicits no response other than a brief TV story.
In the third novella, "Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire", several members of the professional class suggest that the U.S., like Rome, is a superpower in irreversible decline, whose citizens can no longer hope to make meaningful contributions to the world but should simply seek advantageous positions for themselves. The novel leaves as an open question whether this is an accurate judgement, or a self-fulfilling prophecy by the society's elite.
Allusions/references to other works
The killing of a hospital patient by adjusting life-support equipment is referred to as "burking", a reference to the murderers Burke and Hare.
The children in "Angouleme" name their intended victim Alyona Ivanovna, after Raskolnikov's first victim in Crime and Punishment.
Miss Kraus, the delusional sign-carrying woman who frequents Battery Park in "Angouleme", was an actual person alive at the time Disch wrote the novel.
Literary significance and criticism
334 was selected by David Pringle as one of the 100 best science-fiction novels written since World War II.
Samuel R. Delany's The American Shore (1978) is a book-length critical essay on the novella "Angouleme"; Delany argues that despite the lack of any scientific themes in "Angouleme", its speculative setting makes it inherently science fiction.
The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale describing a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted years before by an unnamed cataclysm which destroyed civilization and most life on earth. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection.
