The Road, Post 2, Question 4 (part 1)
4. Consider both novels. What do you notice about the treatment of women?The characterization of women? Or the omission of women? What might it signify in either novel?
In movies, in books, and even in songs women are aligned with so many different things. There aligned with things like other women, or men, or in some cases even food ...But when do you ever hear of woman being aligned with a dying world? Well after reading McCarthy's, The Road, that no longer becomes a surprise to you. Reading this question and thinking about it before I got halfway through the book made me read into every spoken word about women even the smallest things. (I think I might have over done it a tad bit. lol)
In the different occasions where women show up in this book they all play a role in the big picture of woman being aligned with a world that is on the verge of dying out.
It starts at the very beginning when the father is having dreams about his wife.
"In dreams his pale bride came to him out of a green and leafy canopy. Her nipples pipeclayed and her rib bones painted white...He mistrusted all of that. He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death" (18)
The wife symbolizes a time of love, peace, happiness, and life. He associates her with “the world as it was before it started to die out” and now that it has, there is no room for her memory let alone her in the new world of hate, war, anger, and death. Then this idea comes up even more detailed when the father and the son stumble across the remains of a roasted baby and the son asks the father, “Where did they find it.” The knowledge or idea of this baby or any baby being created by a woman is out of this world to the boy. He cant fathom where this baby came from because he's does not know. Also, he's living in a world of men and they cant have children. The death of the old world has forced him to be closed minded and only know what he lives, which is a survival lifestyle. So not only does the memory of the wife fades away from the father with the old world but, the memory of a mothers creation of a child itself fades away from the boy and the new world also.
However, most but not all of the woman population have died out. Those few woman that were lucky enough to still be alive have a new awesome role in society (I say that with every ounce of sarcasm I possibly can.).
"Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that the women, perhaps a dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites illclothed against the cold and fitted in dogcollars and yoked to each to each" (92).
Can you guess what it is? I can tell you this their role is more important than a male sex slave (or as said in the quote “catamites”) but, its not as important as “goods for war.” However, the role of woman, who are still living in this book, is close to both of those things...
They have now become possessions.
So not only has the memory of creation from woman been lost but there freedom has been lost also.
There value has been lost with the world...
(Please leave comments!!! Add things ask questions!!!)
1 comment:
Thanks for defining catamites for us, I guess I sort of glazed over that particular word, but in retrospect, I definitely didn't know what it meant. Know that they're male sex slaves makes that sentence so much more interesting. For one, I hadn't given much thought to how it creates a sort of hierarchy of interests for the captors. But also, catamites date back to ancient Greece, when it was considered a normal part of growing up for a boy to be taken as the lover of an older man. What an interesting way for McCarthy to reference how society had changed from modern day. Today, many people are uncomfortable with the concept of homosexuality, but beyond that it's certainly not something every man partakes in. By using that vocabulary, McCarthy really shows how social customs and norms have changed.
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