Elements of Naturalism and Neonaturalism in Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Fachbereich Translations-, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft), course: The Frontier in U.S. Fiction and Film: From Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly (1799) to Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006), language: English, abstract: The author of this paper had always been interested in the horror and post-apocalyptic genre, therefore choosing to take a closer look at the American author, Cormac McCarthy, and his post-apocalyptic novel 'The Road' that was published in 2006, and its film adaptation which was released in 2009. After an unknown natural disaster which is most likely caused by humanity itself the world is left in ruins. Society eventually collapsed, and the world is defined by anarchist structures, death and starvation. The particular reason for the cataclysm is not mentioned, but a homeless man, the protagonists meet along the road, gives the reader a hint that it might be a consequence of human behavior that went on for a long time and everyone knew it would lead to something horrible, but humans did not change anything as it was already too late. In the following chapters, Cormac McCarthy's biography and his writing style will be highlighted, including summaries of his writings and awards in a tabular form to express the amount of achievements McCarthy accomplished, and the impact on literature he has, especially in the genres of Western, Southern-Gothic and Post-Apocalyptic literature. After that, the literary epochs of realism, naturalism and neonaturalism will be outlined for the later analysis of the plot, characters and motifs of McCarthy's novel 'The Road' focusing on the realistic, naturalistic and neonaturalistic elements of the story. The descriptive method will be used based on primary and secondary literature and the author's observations.