The Economics of Survival in the Apocalypse.

Cannibal Club

So readers I finally made it to the end of the novel. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. So The Man dies from some sort of sickness that he was carrying on for quite a long time. The boy wakes up and finds his father dead, and is clearly very mournful of this, but stumbles upon another man that eventually invites him to their group.

The man explains how the group operates:

“You dont eat people.

No. We dont eat people.” (McCarthy 284).

So this was clearly the disappointing part. When I was reading this scene I was cheering a little in my head thinking that the boy was being accepted into a cannibal group. I clearly misread one of the lines of dialogue, and wondered if the final scene was the boy joining this group of cannibals. I thought it’d be a weird dark twist to end the novel, similar to the dark twist towards the end of No Country for Old Men. This was unfortunately not the case, as the boy showed disinterest when it came to eating people. I can’t blame him though, the scene with the infant over the fire was particularly appalling.

Anyway, now that the novel has concluded, I wanted to discuss the thematic idea I discussed in my last post. That is, the meaning of the work as a whole. I’ve already talked a great deal about how style contributes to the meaning as a whole in other posts, so I wanted to sum those points up really quickly. Basically the complete lack of chapters, lack of names for our characters, repetitive information in sentences, and uninteresting dialogue all contribute to the meaning as a whole, which poses the question: is it worth it to survive in dire conditions?

The other contributing factors to this overall theme are characters. Both minor and major, they push different ideas about our novel.  Our characters run into other people that generally have bad intentions, and also characters that aren’t sure about their own intentions, and both contribute to the work as a whole in different ways.

Take the old man for instance. I discussed him in my last post, in terms of style, but I’m not sure I covered everything.

“Ely” discusses why he lied about his name: “I couldnt trust you with it. To do something with it. I dont want anybody talking about me. To say where I was or what I said when I was there. I mean, you could talk about me maybe. But nobody could say that it was me.” (McCarthy 168).

So first off we have this idea about names coming up again. I think one of the largest take-aways the whole name business has from this novel is that in the apocalypse it doesn’t matter who you are. He gives them the name “Ely” but they discover this name is just a lie. So what’s the point of him giving them a false name? If his goal is to remain anonymous, and names have no value anyway, then why give a false name? There bound to be some to be some competing ideas when it comes to names, but I don’t think McCarthy is trying to make a clear statement here about names. I think he’s making the reader confused about what matters in this new world, and does this both through our nameless characters, and this whole name business here. This ties into the meaning as a whole in the sense about the degrading value of personality and uniqueness in our new world.

Additionally, another point about characters is made here.

The man describes how he gets food in this dialogue:

“I dont understand how you're still alive. How do you eat?

I dont know.

You dont know?” (McCarthy 168).

I think a clearer point is being made here about the confusion of survival for Ely. Both our characters, and our reader probably too, is confused on how this man is still alive. If he doesn’t know where he’s getting food from, how is it possible he’s still alive. So this confusion about survival, and his ability to remember how he’s doing it relates to this meaning as a whole. If Ely can’t even remember how he got food, and is arguably not even going through the motions, what’s the value of his survival to him?

Other minor characters can also influence our more major ones. I discussed in other posts about how our characters sometimes conflict over their own survival, but other minor characters can also influence their determination and their push for survival. In one scene, towards the end, a character steals their supplies.

The Man confronts this thief in dialogue:

“Come on, man. I'll die.

I'm going to leave you the way you left us.” (McCarthy 286).

So this whole idea of murder is pretty clear in this scene. Our characters pursue this thief in the effortful pursuit of survival. Instantly, from the point they discover their stuff gone, frustration and the desire for retribution kick in and push them forward. So only when supplies are constant, and the sights of atrosciousities in the road are constant, do our characters really ask themselves this question of the value of survival. When motivated by other small characters, they are in a pursuit for survival. This is an interesting point that recurs many times in the novel. Notably here, and also when the man is attacked by the arrow, avoiding dying by the hands of others and also avoiding helping cannibals or thieves is something our characters are very motivated in doing.

Additionally, this aggressive dialogue, and the extent to which the man wants this thief to lose everything is brought to a matter of principle. If the thief is alright with practically murdering them, then the man is alright with doing the same to this man. Despite the crimes of the thief being done to an anonymous person, with only anonymous guilt to haunt him, the man is fine with watching this man strip naked and walk away with nothing. This demonstrates that our characters are motivated to make decisions about other characters’ survival despite their own struggles out on the road. This ties to the theme is a larger sense, explaining how matters of principle are more important than merely the equipment for survival.

Lastly, I wanted to the discuss the ending. Not necessarily the very ending scene of the novel, but one of the last sections of dialogue between the boy and his father.

They discuss the values of stores in one scene:

“Do you want me to tell you a story?

No.

Why not?

...

Those stories are not true..” (McCarthy 265).

So the boy does not want to hear any stories, because they are no longer of relevance. They no longer have value to him because the conditions of life have changed. I think this idea ties into the meaning as a whole in a larger sense.

The theme itself about survival is more about the value of life when life has different conditions. And so other discussions in the novel, the value of names in different conditions, justice in different conditions, and finally truth in different conditions. If life is no longer valuable if everything is so dark and mundane, then other things change their value too. Names are no longer valuable, justice is more valuable, and the truth of the way things are is apparently more valuable too. I think this is the larger idea of this theme, so it’s what I leave my readers with.