Davis 1

Paige Davis
12 December 2014
Sis. Moen
ENG 336 American & British Literature
The Faulty God in McCarthys The Road
In each novel of his personal literary journey, Cormac McCarthy examines death and God
in different ways. Edwin T. Arnold, who wrote his essay Blood and Grace: The Fiction of Cormac
McCarthy before The Road, examines how McCarthys protagonists are most often those who,
in their travels, are bereft of the voice of God and yet yearn to hear him speak (14). In Cormac
McCarthys The Road, the father explicitly describes his son as god; however, by juxtaposing the
father and the son and examining their divine resemblances, it is not the boy but the man who
embodies God, supporting Elys claim that this post-apocalyptic world is too harsh for God to
exist.
The father views his son as the word of god and a condition that makes life meaningful.
His first expression of this association occurs early in the story: If [the boy] is not the word of
God God never spoke (McCarthy 5). Erik J. Wielenberg, in his essay God, Morality, and
Meaning in Cormac McCarthys The Road, claims that this conditional association is the hinge
upon which all other ambiguous references to faith and God rest because with if, the man
introduces the possibility of God existing and not existing in the same sentence. He continues to
note that this conditionality also highlights Gods ability to exist through his ability to speak and
therefore create (1). His interpretation acknowledges McCarthys purposeful ambiguity in Gods
existence specifically because, rather than despite, the explicit reference to the boy as God. In The
Quest for God in The Road, Allen Josephs also examines this sentence and notes how it carries a

Davis 2
scriptural wording reminiscent of John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. With this reference, Josephs indicates the deeper
acknowledgement that the boy is a God or even more specifically a Christ-figure (137). In Secular
Scripture and The Road, Thomas H. Schaub details how [t]he father's sole remaining referent of
sacred idiom is his son. In sustaining his son's breath, he sustains not only his own capacity for life
but for some belief in life's continuance, in the value of life (158). With this purpose for survival
and belief, the son becomes his symbol for life and meaningsimilar to the way Christians find
hope and meaning for life through Christ. I pose that by extension of these interpretations, the boy
is not God as in God the Father, but Christ as the Son of God, representing hope and salvation
to those who believe. The man refers to his son as a Christ-figure as well when he describes his
son as a [g]olden chalice, good to house a god (75). Both chalices and houses are simply
containers to hold things, yet each has religious connotations to the sacrament and temples of
worship, respectively. His sons body is not simply a vessel, but a physical embodiment of divinity.
The boys body still houses divinity, but that divinity is Christ, a figure for which the body is a
much more potent symbol for suffering and sacrifice. This shift then puts the man in the position
of God the Father.
The man represents God through the way the son relies on his father for love, security,
guidance, comfort, and hope. Schaub suggests that because the father and the son have no names,
these characters invite the reader to think of the son as of the father, the son imbued with the father's
values, living on after the father dies, praying to his father (159). This interpretation of the son
being of the father highlights the main features of what also makes the man God, rather than the
boy. The father is the creator and sustainer of his sons life. In his essay, (Carrying the Fire on
No Road for Old Horses: Cormac McCarthys Untold Biblical Stories, Richard Walsh examines

Davis 3
how Papa is the Boys protector and mentor. While Papa admits repeatedly that death is imminent,
he stands between the Boy and death and teaches him to survive (344). The father accomplishes
this role as protector and mentor in other various ways that promote his position as God for his
son. The man mentors his son by providing [o]ld stories of courage and justice (41) to instill the
morals and values of good guys for his son. The boy depends on these stories to give him a moral
compassfor guidance toward goodness, rather than just survival. Because the man is God, these
stories serve as the boys scripturethe use of stories and parables used to instill morals and
valuesas promoted by God for the sake of His children. The man also possesses some degree of
omniscient knowledge about the world (survival skills, reading people, etc.) that he uses to protect
his son and sustain his ability to survive while the man is alive. In return, the son makes promises
with his fatherpromises so sacred to both that they could also be covenants. The mans primary
promiseor covenantis that the father will never leave the boy (113). This central promise is
similar to the way God promises that the righteous worthy of his Spirit will have His
companionship. At the end of the story, the son prays to his father: He tried to talk to God but the
best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget (287). The son
depended on his father for guidance and strength to endure the daily sufferingin a way similar
to how Christ prayed to His Father during his ultimate suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In this shift toward the man being God the Father and the sons representation as Christ the
Only Begottenas well as the rest of humanitywhom God loves and protects because they are
his entire world, it is necessary to examine how the mans reservations about killing his son parallel
the symbolism of sacrifice. The father says, Could you [kill your son]? When the time comes?
(114). At this point, the mans expression could equal that of Abrahams plea in obedience to
Gods commandment that he kill Isaac. Because Abrahams sacrifice parallels the sacrifice of

Davis 4
Gods Only Begotten Son, the mans plea also closely represents Gods love for Christs required
suffering, pain, and deathas well as the pain and sorrows humanity naturally experiences in
mortality. This is also another point at which the mans focus on the boys bodyspecifically
sacrificing the body for the sake of his spirithighlights the fathers conflict for such a proposal
and his personal struggle with allowing such to occurparticularly when he depends on his son
for purpose.
In the scope of the way the son views his father as god, the son represents Christ (as well
as the rest of humankind) and the man turns into a faulty god. Schaub notes how there is perhaps
in this coupling of his own existence to that of his son's a degree of selfishness, an unnatural
reliance of the father upon the son (158). This selfishness and dependence indicates that the man,
as God the Father, is dependent on His children for His own survival in a post-apocalyptic world.
This dependency runs counter to the Christian belief that man relies upon Godthat compared to
God, humanity is nothing, but to God, humanity is everything. In this belief, it is not that God
depends on humanity for survival, but that He has created a world for His children to grow and
experience life in because He loves them. However, if this God depends on humanity for survival,
His love is conditional upon their belief in Him. When the father unevenly splits the hot cocoa, the
boy expresses his fear that [if his father will] break little promises [hell] break big ones (34). If
God breaks his covenants with humanity, then humanity will no longer put its trust in Him. If God
cannot be trusted, then He can no longer provide the love, security, comfort, guidance, and hope
that He is supposed to. The first big promise that the father breaks is staying one of the good guys
because he does not follow the morality he teaches his son to follow. While he teaches his son that
good guys help people, the son has a hard time coping with the fact that they dont help people
because his father is too cautiousmaking the man a hypocritical and unkind god. Equallyif

Davis 5
not moredifficult is his promise to stay with the boy to keep him safe. He is powerless to save
himself or his son.
The man does not recognize his own divinity either because he narrowly sees his son as
God. His conversation with Ely about being the last man on earth and not knowing it themselves
(170) emphasizes a problem with self-identification and understanding an individuals relationship
to others in a harsh and intensely desocialized world. By extension, if the last man cannot identify
himself, can God identify himself as God? Alternatively, to extend Elys question: How would
you know if you were [God]? (169). If God cannot identify himself anymoreif he is as selfish
as the wickedthen how can humanity identify Him? The boy proves that, while he and his father
found solitude in their journey by not talking to one another (the boy actually using silence to cope
with his father failing him), he comes to know his father better by praying to him after his death.
How would an omniscient God know he is the last God on earth?
Because the man does not recognize himself as God, there are points in which his own
curses to God become expressions of his own self-loathing for allowing him and his son to keep
living. The man has a point at which he asks God if there is a neck by which to throttle Him by
(11). In the scope of the mans role as God, this becomes a reach toward suicide because he
unconsciously speaks of his own neck. Even the manner of suicidestrangulationpoints toward
a singular death of body that does not require bullets but rope (a more natural material) with which
to take his own life in a way similar to the mans wife cutting herself with a flake of obsidian
a naturally occurring volcanic glass (58). This suicide requires an out-of-body, objective hatred of
himself. Later, as he considers the possibility of having to kill his son, he says, Curse God and
die (114). This could be a self-cursinga self-hatefor putting his son in such a position of
constant danger by keeping him alive.

Davis 6
The fathers eventual death indicates that God dies in a post-apocalyptic world. While the
man lasted several years after the event itself, and was able to help his son survive as well, he still
died after a certain amount of time in this harsh world where God becomes selfish and powerless.
Stefan Skrimshire questions redemption in The Road by examining how the text supports a death
of God theology (2). He notes, Theology must also acknowledge the failure of human experience
to allow this access [to confirm Gods existence] in the first place [] It is human suffering that
motivates our movement towards reality, and the mystery in which God (through his absence) is
to be found (8). Skrimshires interpretation for how The Road supports this theology emphasizes
the way mere faith is not enough to confirm Gods existencean idea that supports Wielenbergs
note of the conditionality of the mans statement regarding God. Skrimshire also indicates that
human suffering is the puzzle through which humanity can reject Gods existence. The Road
provides plenty of examples of human suffering in this post-apocalyptic world in vivid scenes of
cannibalism, rape, murder, suicide, constant cold and ash, and starvation. It is through these scenes
that God and His ability to help humanity come into question. When Ely and man discuss the boys
divinity or faith, Ely asks if maybe [the boy] believes in God, but later says, [The boy] will get
over it (174). While Ely was referencing the boys ability to get over Elys ingratitude for the
food and company that the man would not have offered, the conversation cuts away from this
question of gratitude to consider the boys faith and his ability to forgive such ingratitude. Through
this jagged conversation, it is also possible shift the focus of the conversation from Ely to the father,
and the conversation turns to the boys ability to get over his fathers hypocrisy (through his
hesitancy to help others like Ely) and eventual death. With such an adjustment and considering
both the man and the boys divine roles, the conversation considers whether humanity still has
faith in God after enduring their inhumane sufferings and if humanity can get over Gods death

Davis 7
after he refused to help them so many times. In this post-apocalyptic world, humanity is so used
to suffering and receiving no divine assistance or relief from their sorrows that God could die and
it wouldnt take too much effort for them to overcome such a loss. The reality that the boy seeks
his fathers help and companionship through prayer after the mans death indicates that, like the
apostles after Christs death, a small number will pray to sustain their faith and hope in God.
However, the father even acknowledges that such prayers will be left to the imaginations of those
praying: You can talk to me and Ill talk to you [] You will have to make it like talk that you
imagine (279). The father later tells the boy that he cannot talk anymore, to which the son
responds, You dont have to talk anymore (279). The fact that the fatherGodacknowledges
his incapacity to fulfill his end of the communication requires the boyhumanityto imagine
or fantasize what God would or could say to give them hope once more, presuming the role of
their own god.
Gods death supports Elys claim that God cannot exist in a world as harsh as the one they
live in. In his conversation with the man about God, Ely says, There is no God and we are his
prophets (170). Elys name serves biblical allusion to the prophet Eli and his admission of being
Gods prophet provides an honest reflection of the man he sees: a faulty god on His deathbed who
does not see himself for who He is. When the man tells Ely that his son is a god, Ely responds
by noting, Where men cant live gods fare no better (172). The man takes this statement to
understand that if he cannot live, then his son as God cannot survive either. The implication, though,
is that that God is not above humanitys ability to survive; God is not immortal, but at the equal
and indiscriminate mercy of death. The world is too harsh for humanity to maintain their faith in
a God who is incapable of saving himself, let alone Christ as His Only Begotten. If this postapocalyptic God is so powerless against death, He is also powerless to keep his covenants to the

Davis 8
faithful. This is partially because this God is incapable of overcoming His own powerlessness, but
the world does not provide a means by which He can bless the faithful. His prophetslike Ely
have lost hope in Him, so He cannot speak through them to enlighten humanity. Skrimshire notes
how McCarthy explore[s] the experience of the death of God as instant paradox: that is, as a
source of the death of hope for some, but also of an absurd affirmation of life by others,
condemning them to a life of eschatological suspension, of waiting but for what? (4-5).
Skrimshires implication that those who still believe in God after Gods death are fools waiting for
the redemption that will never come because God is not alive to extend that redemption. After
Gods death, humanity is stuck in this hell of a post-apocalyptic world that they live in with no
chance for relief or hope of a heaven. In this lost hope, the boys survival indicates that while he
might have found hope of survival through other potential good guys who are capable and
willing to take care of him, he cannot seek that same hope from his father. His salvation comes
through the other familys willingness to savenot God as his father.
Ultimately, the mans death represents Gods death in a post-apocalyptic world because all
he promisedlove, security, comfort, guidance, and hopehe can no longer provide, nor can He
keep those covenants He made. As Ely suggested, a world that is too harsh for humankind to
survive is not the place for God because it means he cannot keep even the most basic of promises.
Through the reversal of this God-figure, the mans true role as God undermines his explicit belief
that his son is God, proving that this post-apocalyptic god is powerless to save Himself or humanity
and there is no way that he can guide or comfort humankind in this horrifying, broken world.

Davis 9
Bibliography
Arnold, Edwin T. "Blood & Grace: The Fiction of Cormac McCarthy." Commonweal (1994): 1116.
Josephs, Allen. The Quest for God in The Road. The Cambridge Companion to Cormac
McCarthy. Ed. Steven Frye. Cambridge University Press (2013): 133-143.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.
Schaub, Thomas H. "Secular Scripture and Cormac McCarthy's The Road." Renascence 61.3
(2009): 153-168.
Skrimshire, Stefan. ""There Is No God and We Are His prophets": Deconstructing Redemption
in Cormac McCarthy's The Road." Journal for Cultural Research 15.1 (2011): 1-14.
Walsh, Richard. "(Carrying the Fire on) No Road for Old Horses: Cormac McCarthy's Untold
Biblical Stories." The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24.3 (2012): 339-351.
Weilenberg, Erik J. "God, Morality, and Meaning in Cormac McCarthy's The Road." Cormac
McCarthy Journal 8.1 (2010): 1-16.