
An edited version of this review appeared in the April, 2008, edition of Touchstone
In his two characters, McCarthy presents us with a study of the tension between moral pragmatism and moral purity. In the father, McCarthy has written a character burdened with a responsibility–caring for his son–that complicates his moral choices. He is frequently presented with decisions that demand pragmatism in exchange for their survival, and yet even in transgressing boundaries he seems to acknowledge their fixedness. He justifies this to his son: “You’re not the one who has to worry about everything.” Not surprisingly, the father is a more understandable and empathetic character than the son.
In the son, McCarthy has written a character of elemental innocence that throws the pragmatism of the father into sharp relief. The son is strict with himself and his father, always asking if the owners of the houses they loot for food and supplies are alive (in which case they would be stealing) or dead. He is compassionate towards others even when that compassion runs counter to their need to survive. “He was just hungry,” he says, begging his father not to leave a thief without clothes or food that they desperately need themselves. He is certainly a type of Christ figure, but his innocence is human–rooted in his ignorance. He can offer no solutions to the often intractable problems that he and his father face, he can only offer the simple, innocent, and blind response of conscience, which sees only right and wrong, not the necessary.
It is his son’s innocence, along with his life, that the father struggles to preserve as they make their way south. Continue Reading »