FaculteitLetteren&Wijsbegeerte

Mickaël Van Nieuwenhove

“Destroying the Self”

The Radical Change of the Ecosphere and the Loss of

Humanity in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Samuel

Beckett’s Endgame

Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van

Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde

Engels

2015

Promotor Professor Dr.Stef Craps

Vakgroep Engelse Letterkunde

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Professor Dr.Stef Craps for the ability to get extensive feedback during the early

phases of writing this project, and for sparking my interest in the study of cli-fi. Due to his critical

approach towards my initial thesis statement and the several chapters that I had in mind, I was able to

write a more encompassing study of the relation between Beckett’s Endgame and McCarthy’s

The Road, while at the same time focusing more on the link between climate change and its possible

effect on what it means to be human.

I would also like to express my gratitude towards Dr. Sarah Haas, who taught me how to stay focused

while writing, and who has shown me the benefits of scribbling. Mr. Sean Bex has been helpful as

well on this part, as he expressed great interest in my writing process and the topic of my project.

Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends. Some of them were kind enough to act as proof-

readers, others shared copious cups of coffee with me, and gave me the chance to express my thoughts

in such a way that it made the overall structure of my project clearer.

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“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the

amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in

your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were

maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be

made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed

of mystery.”

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”, pg. 306-307

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Contents

Acknowledgement .................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 6

I. The Radical Change of the Ecosphere in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Samuel Beckett’s

Endgame ............................................................................................................................................... 12

A. Apocalyptic Events in The Road and Endgame ........................................................................ 12

B. The State of the Ecosphere in The Road and Endgame ............................................................ 14

II. The Loss of Humanity: Human Constructs, Society, Culture, and Ideals in a Post-Human World

…… ...................................................................................................................................................... 21

A. A Post-Human World: A Reinterpretation of Human Constructs............................................. 21

B. The Return to the Nomadic Foraging Principle ........................................................................ 25

C. The Reorganisation of Society .................................................................................................. 29

D. Past-Humanity and Post-Humanity: the Forced Change in Human Ethics .............................. 33

E. The Loss of Language and Perception in Connection to the Destruction of the Anthropocentric

Ecosphere .......................................................................................................................................... 39

III. Resistance to the Destruction of the Anthropogenic Ecosphere ............................................... 45

A. Remembering the Past .............................................................................................................. 45

B. The Preservation of Humanity: Personal Ethics ....................................................................... 48

IV. The End of Humanity ................................................................................................................ 53

A. Imagining a Possible Future: Hope in the Rebalancing of Nature ............................................ 53

B. The Future of Humankind and Humanity after the Destruction of the Anthropogenic

Ecosphere .......................................................................................................................................... 56

C. Deep Ecology in The Road and Endgame ................................................................................ 59

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 62

Works Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 68

(25839 words)

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Introduction

During the last five years, popular news coverage concerning climate change has not only increased

rapidly, it has also picked up on the term “Anthropocene”, a concept that is used to explain the

relationship between humans and the environment “at the scale of the Earth as a single, evolving

planetary system” (Steffen 842), and how we are directly influencing it1. It is also the name for a new

geological epoch, being the successor of the Holocene. Whether we are currently living in this new

geological epoch, is a question which will be answered in 2016. By then, the International Union of

Geological Sciences(IUGS) will issue a statement regarding the end date of the Holocene and the

beginning of the Anthropocene.

Given the recent agreement of the UN on how the problems of climate change should be dealt with2,

and the ever increasing published data which emphasises that the climate is changing rapidly, it is

clear that politicians, scientists, but also ‘common people’ are at least aware of the issues that are

connected to a changing climate, though no significant steps have been taken to at least slow down the

alterations of the climate. Nevertheless, the consequences can be severe, and not only for the planet,

but also for the millions of species that inhabit it. According to Steffen, not only is the world

endangered by a “sixth great extinction […] and the first caused by a biological species”, climate

change “may well threaten the viability of contemporary civilization and perhaps even the future

existence of Homo Sapiens.” (Steffen 850, 862, his emphasis). In other words, “humankind has

become a global geological force in its own right” (Steffen 843), and we are well on our way to

radically alter the world we are living in in such a way that it might even threaten our own survival as

a species.

Even though the consequences of climate change could be disastrous for humankind, some scientists

have argued that our species is not the most important thing at stake. As a counter to a too human-

centred approach, scientists that follow the approach of Deep Ecology believe that the extinction of

1 The full definition, according to the OED is “Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the

period during which human activity has been been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.”

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Anthropocene, consulted on 29/12/2014. 2 See “UN members agree deal at Lima climate talks”, published on www.bbc.com on 14/12/2014, consulted on

29/12/2014.

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the human species is not necessarily a devastating event for the planet, and that it urges us “to change

our view from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism” (Morton 2). In his introductory work to Ecocriticism,

Greg Garrard states that according to “The Population Bomb” (1972), written by the deep ecologist

Paul Ehrlich, the human species can be seen as an “eco-pathological threat” (Garrard 96), a disease on

the planet itself. This implies that our own species is damaging the ecosphere, and that we must deal

with these radical changes in such a way that we limit our impact on the climate, if needed, by our

own (involuntary) extinction.

Nevertheless, the disappearance of human life on earth does not necessarily mean the end of

anthropogenic climate change. As SrinivasAravamudan rightly argues in “The Catachronism of

Climate Change”, “Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the

time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks” (Aravamudan 8). In other words, even if

our species goes extinct, the influence of humankind on the climate might continue for an extended

period until the planet has rebalanced itself. This argument has as a basic premise that it is impossible

to destroy an entire planet, and that Earth is not “a static, fixed image”, but “a process rather than an

object” (Garrard 204).

Still, the way we are influencing the climate and how this might lead to a possible extinction of our

own species, are topics that spark plenty of discussion among scientists and creative writers. In his

essay on possible Anthropocene futures, FransBerkhout lists five scenarios of how our generation and

future generations might deal with the concept of climate change. One of these is a scenario that

focuses on the societal, cultural, and economic issues that are connected to anthropogenic climate

change, namely the “task in seeking to understand not only the connectedness of global change and

sustainability problems, but also how interactions are shaping the social, cultural and economic

responses” (Berkhout 157). It is this scenario that is currently the most present in the debate on

climate change as depicted in literature in the sense that a certain collection of fictional works, from

now on referred to as “climate fiction”, have been and are written specifically in order to move the

issues concerning climate change from the scientific to the cultural domain. By dealing with these

issues on a general level, more people are made aware of the problematic nature of climate change

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and are thusly encouraged to actively discuss the influence of our own species on the rapid change of

the planet’s ecosphere.

The literary study that focuses on this representation of climate change in fictional works is part of

“the critical category of ecocriticism or environmental criticism” (Trexler and Johns-Putra 189),

though “Ecocriticism” is not limited to literature alone. According to Trexler and Johns-Putra, it “is a

hybrid discipline, loosely composed of researchers investigating questions to do with literature,

culture, and the environment” (Trexler and Johns-Putra 192). When discussing the issue of climate

change, Trexler and John-Putra move away from a more general definition of ecocriticism, which

emphasizes the link between the physical environment and literature by stating that, based on

‘historical and methodological reasons’, the engagement of ecocriticism with climate change is a

more recent phenomenon (Trexler and Johns-Putra 189).

Climate Fiction, or the fictional works that deal with the issues of climate change, is in itself a

collection of different genres, though most of them can be classified as ‘science fiction narratives that

deal with the future of planet Earth’, and “imagin[ing] a future setting in a climate-changed Earth”

(Trexler and Johns-Putra 186, 187). What is crucial here is that these works set their narratives in a

world that has already been radically changed by climate change, and not necessarily fully explain

how this change has occurred. In this way, they focus on the possible consequences, an issue that is

far more frightening than possible scenarios of how we might be changing the climate.

Such literary works are often referred to as partially belonging to the subgenre of Environmental

Apocalypticism, which deals with an apocalyptic event caused by radical change in the environment.

It is a subgenre that ‘is born out of crisis’ and “is not about anticipating the end of the world, but

about attempting to avert it by persuasive means” (Garrard 107-108).The difference, though, is that

Climate Fiction barely hints at the cause of the apocalypse, and that the event itself already has

happened before the narrative starts. Climate Fiction is more about what happens after the end, than

about the end itself. It is an example of how the humanities “look ahead further into the Anthropocene

and even consider what might follow in the future” (Tickell 931).

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In “Climate Change in literature and literary criticism”, Trexler and Johns-Putra give an example of

such a work. To them, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), a story about a father and son travelling

through a post-apocalyptic landscape, ‘deals with the issues of climate change in a less direct way’

(Trexler and Johns-Putra 188). It is a bleak story of how two people have to adapt to a radically

changed and dangerous world on a physical level as well as on a mental level. Similarly, it is a story

about what it means to be human in a non-human environment.A similar example of a work that deals

with issues regarding humanity in a non-human world is Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (1957), a play

that is characterised by its minimal scenery and nonsensical plot. It is more about losing everything

you care about, including who you are, than it is about two people who want to accomplish something

throughout the duration of the play.

Both works start from the same premise, namely, that an apocalyptic event has taken place that

resulted in a radical change of the ecosphere. Note that I have deliberately chosen not to use the word

“destruction” in connection to the apocalyptic event when talking about the state of the ecosphere.

The OED definition of “ecosphere”, “The biosphere of the earth or other planet, especially when the

interaction between the living and non-living components is emphasized”3, specifically states that for

there to be an ecosphere, there should be interaction between its living and non-living components.

As a total destruction of the ecosphere would imply that there is no interaction possible, this would

result in a totally static world. Since the world in The Road and in Endgame still has interaction in it,

as they deal with events from the perspective of survivors, the ecosphere in its entirety is not

destroyed. Instead, I will argue that the post-apocalyptic ecosphere in McCarthy’s The Road and

Beckett’s Endgame has undergone a radical change in such a way that this resulted in the destruction

of the anthropocentric ecosphere, and the loss of the sense of humanity that is connected to it.

In order to accomplish this, I will do a close reading of both works in several chapters, focusing on the

radical change of the ecosphere, the loss of humanity that is connected to that, the resistance of the

characters to the destruction of the anthropocentric ecosphere and how this is expressed on several

levels, and the inevitable end of humanity within both works.

3Found on http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ecosphere, and consulted on 19/11/2014.

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In part I, I will describe the radical change of the ecosphere in both works by focusing firstly on the

apocalyptic events that set the change in motion. Secondly, I will describe the state of the ecosphere

by focusing on the atmospheric condition, the presence of vegetation, the lack of variety in animals,

and the condition of the human species. I will conclude this part by stating that the post-apocalyptic

ecosphere differs from its pre-apocalyptic counterpart in such a way that the apocalyptic event that

changed the ecosphere can be seen as having destroyed the anthropocentric ecosphere.

Part II will focus on how the radical change of the ecosphere and the destruction of the

anthropocentric ecosphere resulted in the loss of humanity of the survivors that are living in the post-

apocalyptic world.I have divided this part into five chapters, which respectively deal with how a post-

human world forces a reinterpretation of human constructs, how the survivors have the option to

return to a nomadic foraging lifestyle, several possibilities to reorganise a pre-apocalyptic society and

turn it into a post-apocalyptic one, the forced change or abandonment of an ethical lifestyle that is

considered ‘human’, and finally how the destruction of the anthropocentric ecosphere results in the

loss of language and a changed perception of the world.

The way the characters in The Road and Endgame offer resistance towards the destruction of the

anthropocentric ecosphere is the subject of the third part, which I have divided in two chapters.

The first chapter is an explanation of the problematic relationship between the characters and their

own memories, dreams, and desires, and how these memories are slowly being corrupted. The second

chapter deals with the ethical actions, or the lack thereof, of the characters, and how these are seen as

either a resistance towards the post-human, un-ethical life or an acceptance thereof.

The final part takes a step back from the narrative itself and discusses whether there is any hope for

the characters in Endgame and The Road of seeing nature restore itself within their own lifetime, and

why it is undecided whether the entire planet is in the same state as the setting of both works. It also

deals with the possibility of there being a future for mankind and humanity in a post-apocalyptic, non-

human ecosphere by focusing on the possibility of the next generation to carry on living an ethical

life. Lastly, it is a plea to reread both works from a deep ecologist perspective and explains why the

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end of humanity is just a phase in the larger process of change and adaptation of the planet’s

ecosphere.

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I. The Radical Change of the Ecosphere in Cormac McCarthy’s

The Road and Samuel Beckett’s Endgame

A. Apocalyptic Events in The Road and Endgame

Post-apocalyptic works of fiction in general do not deal with an absolute destruction of the ecosphere,

nor of the biosphere, but rather with a radical change in the balance between the living- and non-

living components. An absolute destruction would imply demolishing the possibility of even writing a

story about it. Since there would be no more interaction between Earth and the organisms that inhabit

it, the planet would be a cold, silent, barren piece of rock, destined to remain in that state until it, as

well, is destroyed by external sources. As McCarthy’s The Road and Beckett’s Endgame deal with the

story of humans and their interactions with each other, other organisms, and the world around them, it

is impossible to state that the ecosphere in both works is completely destroyed. It has, however,

changed in such a radical way that it is out of balance, and that its inhabitants must find a way to cope

with this ‘new’ world.

Both Endgame and The Road still have some sort of world as a setting, though it in no way resembles

the world before the apocalyptic event. Both works move beyond the apocalypse and focus on the

state of the ecosphere at the moment of the narrative, rather than the evolution from the pre-

apocalyptic earth to its post-apocalyptic counterpart. As James Berger argues in After the End:

Representations of Post-apocalypse (1999) “[the] world after the world, the post-apocalypse, is

usually the true object of the apocalyptic writer’s concern. The end itself, the moment of cataclysm, is

only part of the point of apocalyptic writing” (Berger 6, his emphasis). Berger’s statement concerning

apocalyptic writing is applicable to both The Road and Endgame, as the bulk of the narrative is

situated after the cataclysm. Both works deal with what is rather than what was, and clear references

to the events that changed the ecosphere are treated as asides or are simply not present.

The Road and Endgame share a lot of similarities concerning the lack of references to the apocalyptic

event that reshaped the ecosphere in the narrative. The characters in Beckett’s play never talk about

the events that led up to their current human condition, nor is there clear evidence in the stage

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directions. However, as can be read in the preface to Endgame, written by Rónán McDonald, most

critics connect the play’s bleak descriptions with “post-nuclear apocalypse, the devastations of the

Holocaust or the ravaged Normandy landscape that Beckett drove through in 1945” (McDonald xiv).

Though the main assumption is one that explains the traumatic event as caused entirely by humans,

and that its duration was brief, spanning at most a couple of years4, Beckett’s reluctance to explain the

origin of his bleak worldview in the play opens up another way of analysing the play, as was done by

the ecocritic Greg Garrard, who, in a rudimentary version of “Endgame: Beckett’s Ecological

Thought”5, focuses on the possibility of the apocalyptic event being more linked to ecology than

previously thought. While it is true that placing the play in the context of the 21st century and linking

it to the “modern anxieties” (Garrard 16) would be anachronistic, Garrard argues that “an ecocritical

reading at least has the advantage that imagery from nature really does permeate the play, and that the

‘end of nature´ is its most literal environment and immediate context.” (Garrard 16).

In McCarthy’s The Road, the apocalyptic event that caused the profound change of the ecosphere is

just as obscure as in Endgame, though the novel contains more references to the aftermath of the

event. In a non-chronological way, the narrator informs the reader of various events that occurred

after the apocalyptic event. When put in a chronological order, these asides from the narrator enable

the reader to construct a mental picture of how the radical change of the ecosphere took place. These

asides deal with, for example, the moment just after the event itself: “The clocks stopped at 1:17. A

long shear of light and then a series of low concussions” (McCarthy 54), as well as the life on the road

the first years after the event: “In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up

in their clothing” (McCarthy 28). Where Endgame focuses solely on the state of ecosphere in real

time in the play, The Road offers more clarification on the gradual evolution from the pre-apocalyptic

ecosphere to the post-apocalyptic ecosphere. However, the “exact cause of the event [is still]

ambiguous” (Hardwig 42) and not even necessary, as it enables the narrative to focus on the

4 Given that the apocalyptic event is seen as a singular event which possesses clear boundaries in time, such as

for example the detonation of a nuclear bomb or a conflict that has a clear starting and ending point, and that the

aftermath of such an action is not part of the event itself. 5 As found on Garrard’s Academia profile page, consulted on 20/11/2014:

https://www.academia.edu/350917/_Endgame_Becketts_Ecological_Thought_.

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consequences of a change in the ecosphere, and can even offer more insight in the traumatic nature of

survival after an apocalyptic event.

Just like the reader, the characters in both Endgame and The Road never find out, or refuse to talk

about, the exact nature of the event that resulted in a radical change of the ecosphere.

Their unawareness of the apocalyptic event only adds to their role as victims and survivors of a highly

traumatic experience, as they are “marked with the imprints of catastrophe but without clear

knowledge of what exactly the catastrophe was” (Berger 49). This enables both narratives to focus

more on the physical state of post-apocalyptic ecosphere and the physical and mental state of the

survivors of the pre-apocalyptic ecosphere. This double duality, the post-apocalyptic ecosphere and

the survivors of the pre-apocalyptic ecosphere at the one hand, and the physical and mental state of

those survivors, implies that it is difficult, if not impossible, to disconnect the changed ecosphere from

the survivors6 who have to adapt to it, while at the same time it focuses on both the physical and

mental reality of such a forced change.

In the next chapter, I will describe the physical state of the ecosphere, as perceived by human beings,

in both Endgame and The Road, by focusing on the living organisms, by which I mean animals and

humans, the vegetation, and the atmospheric condition of the post-apocalyptic world. The subsequent

parts of this dissertation will discuss the way humans are forced to deal with this changing physical

reality and what this implies for them on a physical and mental level, as well as their inability to deal

with this change and their resistance to this forced change in their reality.

B. The State of the Ecosphere in The Road and Endgame

Through descriptions of the atmospheric condition, by which I mean weather-like phenomena such as

precipitation and temperature, but also the (lack of) sunlight, descriptions of the state of vegetative

organisms, and the state of animal populations and the human species alike, I will examine how the

post-apocalyptic ecosphere in The Road and Endgame differs from their pre-apocalyptic counterparts.

Both works contain a bleak description of the earth’s condition, though Endgame offers a far more

6 Though every living organism after the apocalyptic event can be seen as a “survivor”, I will focus solely on

human survivors.

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negative state of the ecosphere than The Road. Additionally, I will also stress that these descriptions

are perceived by humans, and thatthe post-apocalyptic ecosphere does not necessarily present itself as

problematic for the planet, but for the people who live on it.

The general description of the scenery in Endgame and The Road is unsurprisingly similar, and is

well-adjusted to the bleak themes that can be found in the narrative. Both worlds are described as

‘greyish’, both in colour and sentiment. Every area is unappealing; every new landscape is identical to

the previous one. In the case of Endgame, in which there are no descriptions of the landscape other

than those made by the characters, the ‘world’, meaning the stage set “suggest[s] the bleakest of living

spaces, but beyond this, we understand, things are even less hospitable” (Hamilton 614). Even the

characters find no excitement in studying the world around them. As Clov uses binoculars to describe

the scenery to Hamm, “he reports on the world’s nullity and grayness” (Hamilton 614).

The Road contains similar descriptions: “He woke before dawn and watched thegray day break”

(McCarthy 10), “There were days when the ashen overcast thinned and now the standing trees along

the road made the faintest of shadows over the snow” (McCarthy 107), “Long days. Open country

with the ash blowing over the road” (McCarthy 229). Rune Graulund reaches the same conclusion in

“Fulcrums and Borderlands. A Desert Reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road”: “the scenery of

The Road is drab [and] monochrome. […] The landscape is so monotonous, so flat and so dull, that it

does not really matter whether one moves or stays put. […] There is nothing to cherish in the

landscape, nothing to differentiate it from the next place down the road” (Graulund 60).

Though in general, both ecospheres are highly similar, a more in-depth analysis reveals that in

Endgame, the ecosphere is more desolate than the one in The Road. In a sense, the world in

Endgameconsists of an inactive ecosphere. The weather, for example, is not dynamic anymore:

“Hamm: “What’s the weather like?” Clov: “The same as usual.”” (Beckett 19). This is expressed in

various weather phenomena. There are no more storms, no more gales, it does not even rain anymore:

“Hamm: “It’d need to rain.” Clov: “It won’t rain.”” (Beckett 7). Even the sun seems to have given

out, and there are no more waves: “Hamm: “The waves. How are the waves?” Clov: “The waves?

[…] Lead.” Hamm: “And the sun?” Clov: “Zero”” (Beckett 21). The play suggests that there is

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something fundamentally wrong with the ecosphere and the planet, and that this is unfixable.

The apocalyptic event resulted in the sunlight being blocked out: “Zero” (Beckett 21); and gravity,

which influences the tides, is out of balance as well: “Clov: “There’s no more tide.”” (Beckett 38).

The characters in the play are aware of this problematic inactiveness of the ecosphere, and simply do

not seem to care anymore. They know that there will be no more change, no more action. Every day

will be exactly like the day before. New observations are no longer necessary: “Hamm: “Look at the

earth.” Clov: “I’ve looked.”” (Beckett 19).

Though the atmosphere in Endgame seems to be irreversibly static, descriptions in The Road portray

an atmosphere that is still active, the weather phenomena closely resembling those of the pre-

apocalypse, albeit the dominance of an atmosphere that is filled with ash, as described by use of

“ashen overcast” (McCarthy 107), the ash polluting the entire world: “everything was covered in ash”

(McCarthy 191). The narrative mentions various common precipitations and meteorological events

such as rain: “In the morning a cold rain was falling” (McCarthy 87), “they stood in the rain like farm

animals. [T]hey went on […] in the dull drizzle” (McCarthy20), snow: “The new snow lay in skifts all

through the woods” (McCarthy 79), “By late afternoon it has begun to snow” (McCarthy 189); but

also (lightning) storms, often paired with heavy downpours (McCarthy 49, 251-252).

Additionally, there is ample evidence that the climate is changing as well, the narrative starting with

the father and the boy on the run for winter as “[i]t’s getting colder every day” (McCarthy 42).

However, there is no evidence that this is a repeating pattern. It might simply be the case that the

world is turning colder, without any chance of spring or summer ever occurring again. The “alien

sun” is in “cold transit” every day (McCarthy 189), meaning that the sun is not always visible through

the blanket of ash in the atmosphere, which consequently turns its presence in the sky into something

strange and not common. The same ash blanket might also have influence on the sun’s capability to

heat the planet, serving as a layer of insulation which largely blocks the heat rays.

Nevertheless, the narrative in The Road does not contain the same view of the ecosphere as Endgame,

the former being an ecosphere of change, as is expressed in the descriptions of the atmosphere, the

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latter providing a bleak image of a static ecosphere in which nothing moves anymore. As Hamilton

has suggested, “[t]he deadness is general, the universe itself a kind of tomb” (Hamilton 614).

This tomb-like image in Endgame is also supported by the references to vegetation, or rather, the lack

of growth of plants. In one scene, Hamm and Clov discuss Clov’s project of growing new plants, only

to conclude that “[t]hey haven’t sprouted” and [t]hey’ll never sprout” (Beckett 11-12). Together with

Clov’s comment that “[t]here’s no more nature […] [i]n the vicinity” (Beckett 10), the inability to

grow new vegetation adds to the idea that the characters are living in a desolate, barren world in

which the only way to ‘see’ forests, or nature in general, is by dreaming about them (Beckett 6).

Similar to Endgame, The Roadrarely contains imagery of vegetation that is not connected to death and

barrenness. The narrative especially emphasises dead trees, with references to “barren woodland”,

“cedar trees that lay about in hillocks of snow and broken limbs”, “a few standing trunks that stood

stripped and burntlooking ” (McCarthy 14-15, 103), and finally: “All the trees in the world are going

to fall sooner or later” (McCarthy 35). The imagery in these descriptions refers to the all-out

destruction of vegetation in the sense that even the mightiest, oldest examples of vegetative life, i.e.

the trees, cannot survive in this post-apocalyptic world. Even though they might be still standing, they

are broken, stripped, or burned black; and all are dead and bound to fall down eventually. Not one tree

has escaped the apocalyptic event. No matter how far the protagonists travel, they always encounter

the same imagery, namely, endless clusters of dead trees: “The country went from pine to liveoak and

pine. Magnolias. Trees as dead as any” (McCarthy 209). Besides explicit descriptions of dead trees,

the narrative also includes references to other plants, which are found in the same state, whether they

are simply grasses: the “dead sedge” (McCarthy 103), beautiful flowers: “[a] tangle of dead lilac”

(McCarthy 26), or man-made hedges “gone to rows of black and twisted brambles” (McCarthy 20).

Opposite to the abundance of dead vegetation, in The Road, there are barely any signs of animals, the

single two instances of animal life found on its own being the memory of a flock of migratory birds:

“He never heard them again” (McCarthy 55), and the scene in which the boy hears a dog in the

distance: “They listened. Then in the distance they heard a dog bark” (McCarthy 87). Both the

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characters and the reader can assume that all other animals have gone extinct, either because of the

lack of food resources or because they have been hunted down and eaten by other life forms. In the

post-apocalyptic world, humanity is the most dangerous predator alive, willing to hunt down every

other animal to ensure its own survival.However, there is still uncertainty about the condition of

zoological life other than humans. It is possible, however improbable, that somewhere on earth, some

animals might have survived. In a way, the characters still hope that they have been misled by the

inability to know whether everything is dead or not. This sentiment is expressed by the father when he

takes a moment of reflection after their arrival at the seaside and imagines what could still be out

there: “He thought there could be […] life in the deep. Great squid propelling themselves over the

floor of the sea in the cold darkness” (McCarthy 234).

As mentioned above, the zoological life has largely gone extinct and the remainder of it has been

hunted down by humans to ensure a source of food. Examples of this can be found in the various

descriptions of hunting groups and scavengers who live on the road and are constantly searching for

resources (McCarthy 62-63, 96, 207). Unlike other animals, the human population is still visibly

present in the world, though they are not thriving and are well on their way towards extinction

themselves.

Similar to the discussion of vegetation in Endgame, the references to zoological life are non-existent,

except for a small flea (Beckett 22), a rat (Beckett 33), and a little child outside (Beckett 46),whichall

seem to turn up out of nowhere, as if they just came into existence or are figments of the characters’

imagination. Besides these strange occurrences, the play suggests that there is only life in the Hamm’s

shelter, the last geographical space in which zoological life can be found: “Hamm: “There’s no one

else.” Clove: “There’s nowhere else.””(Beckett 8).At the same time, the characters do not seem to be

able to completely come to terms with this emptiness of their universe. When talking about crossing

the sea on a raft, Hamm and Clov think about what they might expect there, their hope focused on

“other … mammals” (Beckett 23). This idea, which is also present in The Road, is connected to the

hope of not being entirely alone, which is a type of assurance on an existential level, and which

enables the characters to carry on surviving. Perhaps someday, they will meet other people who are

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equally minded, animals who have survived, and plants that are able to thrive. It is an example of

‘existential hope’, as opposed to ‘existential fear’, which both deal with the idea of being alone in the

universe, the former emphasising the possibility of not being the last one, the latter focusing on the

dread of being the only one left.

In summary, the ecosphere in both Endgame and The Road is severely limited based on the state of

vegetative and zoological life. The Road emphasises the imagery of dead trees as a way of portraying

the inability of plants to grow back, whereas in Endgame, the landscape is completely barren to the

point that vegetative life seems non-existent. The state of zoological life is equally desolate.

In Endgame, the characters seem to be the only people alive, and their shelter is the only geographical

space that is suitable for some life to survive: “Endgame […] imprisons its characters in a room which

might be the only place on earth to house human life.” (Pattie 76).The Road also describes a highly

limited diversity of animals, all of the species being on the brink of extinction, including humanity,

which has so far succeeded to survive by, in part, hunting down other animals and using them as a

food source7. Lastly, based on meteorological phenomena, Endgame suggests that the ecosphere is

entirely inactive, and that there is no more possibility of immediate improvement. The narrative in

The Road, however, does contain descriptions of weather that closely resembles its pre-apocalyptic

counterpart.

Even though the ecosphere in The Road might seem less deteriorated than the ecosphere in Endgame,

both works still deal with a world that radically differs from the pre-apocalyptic one we are currently

living in. Critics such as James Wood, Ben De Bruyn, and Greg Garrard have argued that this change

in ecosphere signifies the ‘end of nature’, by which they mean ‘nature as perceived by human beings’,

nature as a form of human construct. Garrard explicitly states that, in the case of Endgame, the fact

that the characters do not perceive nature anymore serves as a “tragicomic exploration of the end of

nature” (Garrard 393, his emphasis). By only seeing an ecosphere that does not resemble its pre-

apocalyptic counterpart, the belief that there is still a habitable world quickly vaporises.In this way, it

7 Besides hunting down animals, most people are also scavengers, and some even turn to cannibalism. This will

be discussed in further chapters.

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is not the ecosphere that has been destroyed; it has simply changed in such a radical way that the

human view of this ecosphere, the ‘anthropocentric’ ecosphere, has been destroyed. In a sense, the

ecosphere has moved beyond its human construct. This is expressed in James Wood’s “Getting to the

End”, in which he describes McCarthy’s imagery, dealing with the destruction of the ecosphere, as

profoundly changed in such a way that it might even be called “post-human” (Wood 44). This

implicates two important observations, firstly, that this ‘post-human’ ecosphere is not to be perceived

from an anthropocentric point of view, and secondly, that human beings have to become ‘post-

humans’ in order to fully adapt to this non-anthropocentric ecosphere.

Concerning the first implication of James Wood’s statement of a ‘post-human’ ecosphere, Ben De

Bruyn points out that “it may be difficult to imagine the destruction of the human world, but it is even

more difficult to imagine the annihilation of the earth itself” (De Bruyn 778). It would be egocentric

to presume that because humanity has severe difficulties with trying to survive in a

post-apocalyptic world, the entire ecosphere has been irreversibly destroyed. Nevertheless, there is no

escaping the fact that the post-apocalyptic ecosphere is not the ideal ecosphere for humanity to thrive

in. It is a non-anthropocentric, post-human ecosphere that affects the way humanity deals with its

surroundings. In chapters A, B, C, and E of part II, I will present a discussion of this non-

anthropocentric ecosphere and how the human concepts of nature and culture are directly influenced

after the apocalypse by focusing on the link between the human concepts of nature and culture, the re-

establishing of the nomadic foraging principle, the reorganisation of society, and the loss of language

and perception.

The second implication deals with the idea that, in order to ensure their survival in a post-human

ecosphere, humanity must move away from their definition of the concept of humanity. In other

words, the circumstances might force them to indulge in actions that are considered non-human or

inhuman when approached from a pre-apocalyptic viewpoint. I will provide a discussion of such

actions in the penultimate chapter of part II, which deals with a forced change in human ethics.

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II. The Loss of Humanity: Human Constructs, Society, Culture, and

Ideals in a Post-Human World

A. A Post-Human World: A Reinterpretation of Human Constructs

The discussion of the state of the ecosphere in Endgame and The Road in part Ihas shown that the

ecosphere is non-anthropocentric, and therefore moves away from a human-centred viewpoint. This

implies a change of the physical reality of the survivors, but also of the way they think about nature

around them. The concept of “nature” can be seen as a human construct, as is expressed by Timothy

W. Luke, who, in Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture (1997),

writes on the changing meaning of “nature”. To him, the meaning of the concept is moving towards

“Denature”, as almost the entire world is a “built environment” (Luke 195). This concept cannot

simply be opposed to “culture” anymore. Both are influenced by human agency, and both are seen

from an anthropocentric perspective, with the goal of organising an anthropocentric reality.

This implies that, in the case of Endgame and The Road, the human concept of “nature” is faltering, as

the physical reality and the constructed, anthropocentric reality move away from each other.

The pre-apocalyptic concept is in need of reinterpretation, either by accommodating to the radical

change in reality, thereby providing a new definition of “nature”, or by moving away from the

concept entirely and opting for a post-human interpretation of “nature”.

Since the physical reality of the world after the apocalypse radically defers from the reality of the

pre-apocalyptic world, a reinterpretation of the concept would change the definition in such a way that

there would be two entirely different, even opposing definitions for the same concept; the first one

describing nature as a concept that implies an abundance of life, as seen in the pre-apocalyptic reality,

the second interpretation being its opposite, namely a barren ecosphere. This problem is solved by

moving away from the pre-apocalyptic, anthropocentric concept of “nature”, and instead adopting a

new concept that is un-anthropocentric: the “post-natural” (Huggan& Tiffin 206).

[22]

The implications of such a radically un-anthropocentric concept are discussed in Graham Huggan and

Helen Tiffin’s Postcolonial ecocriticism: Literature, animals, environment (2010), in which is stated

that not only does this new concept change how nature should be perceived, it also changes the way

humanity is perceived, as the discourses that deal with the ‘post-natural’ also deal with ‘a crisis of

humanism’ (Huggan& Tiffin 206). Since nature and humanity are intertwined (Clark 6)8, an un-

anthropocentric take on nature automatically enforces an un-anthropocentric take on everything

related to humanism as well. In other words, radical changes in the environment dictate radical

changes in concepts that are human constructs9, including the concept of humanity.

This forced change in human constructs is clearly present in The Road. As Ben De Bruyn argues:

“[The protagonists’] struggle for survival leads them through the ruins of nature and culture alike”

(De Bruyn 776). This ruin in culture is expressed in the all-out destruction of material, man-made

objects, human-made fossils as it were, such as burned roadside hedges (McCarthy 20), the wreckage

of cars (McCarthy 11), stranded boats (Beckett 236), books (McCarthy 199), and tracks in the melted

roads (McCarthy 50), but also non-physical constructs such as “[n]ation states, [and] social codes of

civil conduct” (Graulund 60). De Bruyn is right to question the significance of this total destruction:

“But what if the condition of ruin affected the entire human world? In that case, our entire sense of

self, memory and place would dissolve” (De Bruyn 781). The destruction of the anthropocentric

constructs brings forth a complete post-human approach to the post-apocalyptic world, in which every

symbol, image, and concept has to be rethought and approached from a post-human perspective.

Some concepts have lost their meaning entirely, an example of this being books (see below), while

other meaningless concepts such as tracks have become highly significant in the post-apocalyptic

world (see below). In this sense, The Road is very much “radically unanthropocentric” (Phillips 446):

“the reassuring smoke of the human community is replaced with ash storms, the fertile pastures and

inviting houses have been laid waste, the enveloping nature lies dead, the harmonizing “luminosity” is

8 In The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment, Timothy Clark defines nature “at its

broadest” as “the sum total of the structures, substances and causal powers that are the universe. In this sense,

evidently, humanity is part of nature” (Clark 6). 9 A ‘human construct’ can be the valorisation of a certain item or an additional layer of meaning connected to a

certain image, sign, or idea. In the terminology of De Saussure, the human construct is the ‘mental concept’

connected to a certain sign, the signifié.

[23]

replaced with faded murk and the freezing observer has to scout ahead with his binoculars and hide

under a plastic tarp, for lack of a living tree” (De Bruyn 778).The post-apocalyptic world is a world of

survival and constant danger, and is therefore unlike the world humans are accustomed to living in. It

has moved beyond the human constructs of civilization and security.

Examples of these post-human centred approaches are found in the change of the symbols which have

lost their original link to humanity or have become exactly the opposite of what they implied in a pre-

apocalyptic world. The symbolism of Fire, smoke, and ash, for example, has undergone significant

changes. In the pre-apocalyptic world, fire and smoke were seen as signs of human activity, connected

to warmth and companionship, and besides that as a sign of danger if the fire is not controlled. In the

post-apocalyptic world of The Road, however, fires are always dangerous if not lit by the protagonists

themselves. Smoke and fire might mean other people, and other people are unpredictable and solely

focused on their own survival, making the fire and smoke signs of possibly dangerous encounters.

A lack of smoke or fire in the vicinity, therefore, is safer than seeing a distant glow on the horizon:

“Nothing to see. No smoke” (McCarthy 7), “watching for any sign of a fire or a lamp. There was

nothing” (McCarthy 8). Additionally, the residue of the fire, namely ash, has become another sign of

safety. When the protagonists observe scenes in which everything has been covered in ash, they are

able to let their guard down. Nothing has moved, therefore no one has passed through this area for

quite some time: “The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash,

everything covered with ash and dust” (McCarthy 11). By observing the ash itself, they can also

approximate the moment the fire burned out, either on its own or because the people who had lit it

decided to leave.

Besides the changed meaning of certain concepts, signs, and symbols, other constructs have either

gained significance or have lost it entirely. Books, for example, used to be connected with knowledge

and wisdom, though after the apocalypse, their knowledge has become useless and out of date. Since

they only tell stories of the past, they have no place in the post-human world. This is expressed in a

scene in which the father visits the ruins of a library, and where he “pick[s] up one of the books and

thumb[s] through the heavy bloated pages” (McCarthy 199), only to discard it almost immediately

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and “[make] his way out into the cold gray light” (McCarthy 199). Books have become insignificant.

They are useless items that have lost their connection to the world, and are worth as much as all other

garbage that was left behind.

Contrary to books, there are also signs of which the signifié was marginally important in the pre-

apocalyptic world, but which has been expanded considerably in the post-apocalyptic world of The

Road. Tracks, for example, have become more meaningful to every human being that passes them.

They are connected with (human) activity, either long ago or very recently: “Bye and bye they came

to a set of tracks cooked into the tar. […] Someone had come out of the woods in the night and

continued down the melted roadway” (McCarthy 50). In the post-human world, they signify

potentially problematic situations; the emotion attached to it being “fear”.

Even though both Endgame and The Road deal with what comes after the apocalypse, Beckett’s play

does not provide clear examples of a necessary reinterpretation of the human constructs as the play is

more about ‘not dealing with change’ rather than ‘adapting to a new world’. The absence of post-

human imagery is in line with the minimalistic approach to the narrative. The characters are incapable

of leaving, either because of their indecisiveness or their physical disabilities. They are

simultaneously saved by, and trapped in, the pre-apocalyptic constrictions of their shelter. As argued

by Rónán McDonald in the introduction to the play, Endgame consists of “terrible strictures […],

spatial and temporal” (McDonald viii). They are not forced to deal with the changed world; there is

simply no reason why they should step outside. Their world consists of the shelter, the last place that

is ‘familiar’ and ‘human’ to them. Additionally, they are stuck in the pre-apocalyptic world in such a

way that the world outside has moved on and has become post-human. As Greg Garrard argues in his

essay on ecology in Endgame, the play is very much about “‘the end of nature’” (Garrard 395), and its

characters already inhabit ‘the world beyond the apocalypse’ (Garrard 395). They are not capable of

dealing with this new world, or are unwilling to do so.

It is the way of how the protagonists live their lives that makes Endgame and The Road so different,

although both works deal with similar themes. The next two chapters will discuss how the characters

[25]

in Endgame and The Road organise their life by focusing on how they deal with the lack of food

sources and how they deal with the possible presence of other humans in the vicinity.

B. The Return to the Nomadic Foraging Principle

Though Graulund argues that the life of The Road’s characters on the road “rapidly dissolves into

meaninglessness” (Graulund 67); there is still a biological force that ensures that they keep moving,

namely, their survival instinct in general, and their fear for starvation and the feeling of hunger in

specific: “Two more days. Then three. They were starving right enough” (McCarthy 136). In this

sense, their journey south is not meaningless, as they are actively trying to find a place that, because

of its geographical locations, lessens the difficult task of survival on the road: “They were moving

south. There’d be no surviving another winter here” (McCarthy 2). The protagonists in The Road

spend most of their time moving from one resting stop to the next, constantly worried about their

meagre food stock (McCarthy 16) and their weak physiology: at one point, the boy has a high fever

that the father needs to treat (McCarthy 265) while the father himself suffers from a disease that

resembles pneumonia, of which he eventually dies (McCarthy 300).

Since the father and son are almost always on the verge of starvation, they are often forced to keep

going, even if that means the possibility of ending up in a dangerous situation: “We’ll have to take a

risk. We need to find something to eat” (McCarthy 83).Together with the inability to stay in one place

and grow vegetables, their struggle for survival forces them to lead the life of foragers. However, due

to the lack of fresh food sources and animals that they could hunt, they are reliant on canned goods

that they might stumble on. They are foragers of human-processed food sources and have to closely

examine every shelter, house, or supermarket since there is a possibility that there might be some food

that has not been found by others: “In the produce section in the bottom of the bins they found a few

ancient runner beans and what looked to have once been apricots” (McCarthy 21-22). Because of their

reliance on human-processed food sources, their diet consists only of what they were able to find.

They are foraging omnivores that eat whatever they can find, and this juxtaposes them to the blood

cults and cannibals on the road, who have chosen to be mainly carnivorous hunters of their own kind

(see below).

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Though they are not in any position to leave food behind because they are constantly on the verge of

starvation, the man and the child sometimes opt for not taking and eating certain goods because it

would slow them down significantly: “What are we going to do with all the stuff? We’ll just have to

take what we can.” (McCarthy 159-160) or for fear of becoming sick: “Someone before him had not

trusted [the jars of tomatoes] and in the end neither did he” (McCarthy 21). Should one of them

become so ill or hurt that they could not keep up the pace, they would both rapidly starve. Being ill or

hurt significantly lowers their chances of survival: after the father’s leg has been pierced by an arrow,

their journey towards the sea consists of him “limping along behind the cart and the boy keeping close

to his side” (McCarthy 289).

However, their survival relies more on luck than on skill. There is no security on the road, no

insurance of a future, no back-up plan. Their inability to solve specific problems urges them to avoid

these problems at all costs: “If they got wet they would probably die” (McCarthy 14).It is not their life

on the road that is meaningless; it is life in general that relies more on chance than on skill. In other

words, the protagonists in The Road do not control their own destiny. They can starve before they find

the necessary food source that can sustain them for at least another day. They can be killed by other

people on the road because they might be in the possession of items that those other people can use to

ameliorate their lives. Their deaths would be of no significance: “There was a good chance they

would die in the mountains and that would be that” (McCarthy 29).

The opposite of their life on the road, a sedentary life, would be impossible without a well-stocked

shelter. Even though the father and son stumble on a bunker (McCarthy 146-147, 153) that is filled

with crates and crates of the necessary supplies to survive for months or even years, they make the

decide not to stay there, for fear of other people and what they might do to the father and son if they

were to find out about their abundance of food: “How long can we stay here Papa? Not long. How

long is that? I don’t know. Maybe one more day. Two. Because it’s dangerous. Yes.” (McCarthy

157). Additionally, even if no one else discovers this shelter and tries to take it by force, they would

have to venture out at one point, as the shelter is an artificial, man-made oasis that is not capable of

[27]

sustaining people for the duration of their entire life: “the bunker is at best an ambivalent space, an

industrial Eden whose goods can be consumed but not renewed” (Warde 10).

In the case of Endgame, the characters need not to worry about the dangers of a life on the road. They

have a secure location in which they can stay until supplies have run out. They do not need to forage

for canned goods as it seems that, at the moment, they have everything they need in the bunker.

However, because of the various physical disabilities and the general indecisiveness of both Hamm

and Clov, they are also stuck in their secure shelter. Hamm, for example, is a blind wheelchair patient

and relies on the services of Clov, who cannot sit down. Since they are “obliged to each other”

(Beckett 48), they have formed a symbiotic bond that is difficult to break. Throughout the play, Clov

threatens to leave Hamm, even though he fully realises that there is nowhere for him to go. The play

ends with Clov standing at the edge of the bunker’s interior, “impassive and motionless” (Beckett 49),

seemingly unsure of what comes next, “his eyes fixed on Hamm, till the end” (Beckett 49). Hamm,

Clov, and Hamm’s father and mother are confined to the last space that belongs to the human world.

Outside their bunker, there is nothing left10

that can be called ‘human’. The bunker is insulating in the

way that it keeps the last of humanity in, while at the same time keeping the post-human world out.

To Hamm, his bunker is his world, anything that is outside is non-existent to him: “Take me for a

little turn. […] Right round the world!” (Beckett 18).

Even though they might be safe from the outside world, the characters are unable to ignore the fact

that, as Clov rightly points out,“something is taking its course” (Beckett 12). They are running out of

food, either because their stocks have been depleted: “There’s no more pap” (Beckett 10), “There are

no more sugar plums!” (Beckett 34), or because Hamm refuses to share what’s left in the larder: “I’ll

give you nothing more to eat” (Beckett 9), “Clov: “I don’t know the combination of the

larder””(Beckett 9). Additionally, random human-created items seem to disappear: “There are no

more bicycle-wheels” (Beckett 9), “There are no more rugs” (Beckett 40).In contrast to food, these

are not necessary to ensure the survival of the people in the bunker. They are, however, examples of a

human world that is slowly vanishing. Consequentially, there will be a point when the characters are

10

See I. B. “The State of the Ecosphere in The Road and Endgame”

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given the choice between starving or venturing out in search of food. The former guarantees a safe but

slow and painful death; the latter forces them to deal with the insecurities of the post-human world

outside their bunker.

The choice that is given to the protagonists in Endgame and The Road when they are confronted by an

eden-like shelter, filled with canned goods and other necessities, is an existential dilemma in itself. Do

they opt for a comfortable death by staying inside the bunker even when all food has ran out, or do

they prefer a hazardous life on the road that can end any day should they run into unfriendly people or

have the bad luck of not finding anything to eat for an extensive period?

The nomadic, foraging lifestyle that is propagated in The Road has as many advantages as it has

disadvantages. It offers the possibility to meet people who are like-minded. Furthermore, it is possible

to more or less avoid potentially dangerous situations if you are careful. In contrast, random events

might develop into hazardous encounters with people who want to take what is yours, and sometimes

the urge to survive after having to spend days without food can force you to do reckless things. A life

on the road consists of much insecurity, and random events might end up in positive experiences, such

as finding the necessary goods to survive another day, or negative consequences like encountering a

group of cannibals.

Similarly, a life as described in Endgameis neither entirely positive nor negative. The thought of

having everything that is necessary to survive collected in a secure and comfortable place might seem

utopic, but the reality of the play has shown that there is no place for utopia in the world after the

apocalypse. A secure bunker is only secure when the necessities that are needed to survive are

renewable, which is definitely not the case in Endgame.This is just a temporary solution to a systemic

problem. If new plants cannot be grown, and animals cannot be bred, humanity must rely on human-

processed goods to ensure its survival. As a consequence, survivors of the apocalypse are forced to

deal with the post-apocalyptic world and the other survivors that inhabit it. This also influences the

way these people organise their social life, as the pre-apocalyptic society has vanished almost entirely.

The destruction of the old dogmas of what a human society should be like opens up an array of

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possibilities in the post-human world: do people opt for a nomadic, solitary life or are they willing to

form little groups or even a small band of like-minded souls? And what are the consequences of these

choices?

C. The Reorganisation of Society

The protagonists in both Endgame and The Road all choose for a life outside the post-apocalyptic

society. The father and son in McCarthy’s novel try to avoid other people as much as possible while

Beckett’s Hamm and Clov prefer a total lockdown of their bunker. No one can enter it, and they are

unable to leave it. In the previous part, I have already discussed the physical consequences of these

choices. However, I have not discussed the mental aspects that are related to a nomadic, solitary life

on the road and to a sedentary but secluded lifestyle, nor have I described other ways of living on the

road. This chapter will focus on the issues mentioned above, and will additionally describe the

lifestyle of the people who travel in nomadic caravans in The Road.

The nomadic, solitary lifestyle of the father and son in McCarthy’s narrative is, as described in the

previous chapter, focused on avoiding conflict as much as possible, while at the same time trying to

find every piece of food in the area. This is as exhausting as it is nerve wrecking, and often brings

both the father and son to the brink of severe anxiety: “The boy was frozen with fear” (McCarthy 63).

Most of their days are spent on the road, scouting out possible locations where they might find some

supplies. At the slightest hint of danger, however, the man either leaves the road or turns back.

Staying out of sight or fleeing are the two best actions that are available to them, since they cannot

defend themselves against entire groups: “This was not a safe place. They could be seen from the road

now it was day.” (McCarthy 3). They are on their own and have no actual weapons to defend

themselves: “You aint got but two shells. Maybe just one. And they’ll hear the shot” (McCarthy 66).

The fact that they are simply on their own in an unknown and dangerous world makes the father and

son unable to relax. They are constantly vigilant and have to remain aware of potential signs of other

people who might have prepared an ambush for them. Their life on the road has made them paranoid

as they have issues with exploring seemingly abandoned houses and are not quick to trust

[30]

othertravellers: “We got a man hurt. It’d be worth your while. Do I look like an imbecile to you?”

(McCarthy 67).

Even though their lifestyle might seem dangerous, they are also able to easily find shelter that would

be inaccessible to larger groups: “They […] made their camp in the dry dirt under the rocks”

(McCarthy 8). They do not need plenty of supplies to survive, and are able to transport everything

they have in a shopping cart. These benefits turn them into flexible survivors, who can easily adapt to

even the grimmest circumstances. Their practice of never staying in the same place for too long,

together with their lightweight equipment and small headcount significantly raise their chances of not

being hunted down and killed.

This solitary lifestyle also has a negative side to it. If something should happen to either the man or

the boy, they can only rely on themselves. When the father is shot by an arrow, he yells at the boy for

not reacting to his questions: “Get the first-aid kit, damn it. Don’t just sit there.” (McCarthy 284).

Later, he apologises, and the father and son agree so start anew: “I’m sorry I yelled at you. He looked

up. That’s okay, Papa. Let’s start over. Okay.” (McCarthy 285). They cannot afford to argue between

them. They need each other, as no one else is going to help them. They are alone and do not easily

trust other people on the road.

Beckett’s Endgame has its own version of a solitary lifestyle, namely a sedentary life of seclusion that

is a-social rather than anti-social. Rather than avoiding other people, they are safely locked away in

their bunker. It is made clear that, even in the earlier days, Hamm only focused on his own survival

and only had visitors, which he refused entrance and help (Beckett 27), rather than him going out to

visit others: “Hamm, Clov, Nagg, and Nell seem to exist within no community other than that which

they themselves form” (Lyons 204). Together with his parents and his loyal servant, he inhabits a

place that is not part of the world outside. Even more so, to him, the only world that matters is the one

that can be found in his immediate vicinity. He is literally the centre of his world: “Am I right in the

centre?” (Beckett 45).

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This centrality of Hamm is expressed in his bond with Clov as well. Since they both suffer from

physical setbacks, they need each other to make their lives more comfortable: Hamm needs someone

to take care of him and administer his medication: “Is it not time for my pain-killer?” (Beckett 42).

Hamm often reminds Clov that if it were not for his generosity of taking in the little Clov all those

years ago, the child would have died of starvation. They have a symbiotic agreement in the idea that

they both needs to look after each other, even though the years of seclusion have eroded their

friendship: “Clov: “There’s one thing I’ll never understand. Why I always obey you. Can you explain

that to me?” Hamm: “No… Perhaps it’s compassion. A kind of great compassion”” (Beckett 45) and

further: “It’s we are obliged to each other” (Beckett 48).

Though Clov is charged with a lot of responsibilities and has always been obedient, Hamm does not

trust him enough to give him crucial information such as the combination to open the larder (Beckett

9). In this way, Hamm refrains from making Clov an equal. Clov is Hamm’s subject, bound to his

master because he was so generous to let him stay. Throughout the course of the play, Clov becomes

more defiant of his master, and the play ends with Hamm possibly being left by the only one that can

take care of him: “Clov! Nothing.Clov!” (Beckett 48).

The characters in Endgame experience a considerable amount of social pressure in the sense that in

order for them to survive, there can be no long-term arguments that might threaten the bond that they

have. This also implies that they have to refrain from being honest to each other or from openly

discussing problems. As they are incapable of being on their own, they are trapped in their

deterministic little world in which each endless day looks exactly the same. Even if they were capable

of leaving their bunker, they know nothing of the post-apocalyptic world outside and are certainly not

prepared to survive in a world they are not accustomed to. They are simply not ready for any type of

change that might occur.

Besides the two lifestyles of the protagonists in Endgame and The Road, certain scenes in McCarthy’s

novel describe another way of organising your life in a post-apocalyptic world, namely, those that

deal with the nomadic caravans. These are groups of people who have formed a small community and

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travel in numbers to ensure their safety. However, this lifestyle is a fragile one, as the slightest

misadventure might make them turn against each other.

The scenes in The Road describe these caravans as “stained and filthy” (McCarthy 62), carrying

weapons like “clubs” (McCarthy 62) and “lengths of pipe” (McCarthy 63). The narrator describes

them as a “phalanx [carrying] spears or lances tasselled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out

of trucksprings in some crude forge upcountry” (McCarthy 96). They are armed to the teeth and

prepared to defend their supplies, but at the same time they are not afraid of actively trying to murder

other people just because they might have additional supplies.

Since they travel in conspicuous groups, have to make use of diesel trucks to transport their supplies

(McCarthy 63), and mainly follow the roads towards their various destinations, conflict with other

groups is inevitable: “when these large bands encounter “others” in possession of more resources,

there will be little to no chance of avoiding conflict over gaining or retaining those resources”

(Lawrence 166). The most important advantage is that larger groups raise the potential of survival

when attacked. Not only is there safety in numbers, some members of the group can choose to stay

and fight while others choose to escape and hide, making it more plausible to have at least some

survivors.

Though large groups might seem intimidating, they are also very vulnerable. First of all, the more

people that are in the group, the more resources that are needed to ensure the survival of everyone in

the group. This implicates that not everything can be transported by carrying it on your back, and that

other means of transportation are needed. The diesel truck, as mentioned in McCarthy’s narrative, is

as useful as it is a burden to the group. It can carry an enormous amount of extra supplies, but it needs

plenty of fuel to keep it running. If it breaks down, repairs can stall progress for several hours: “The

motor [of the truck] sounded ropy. Missing and puttering. Then it quit.” (McCarthy 64).

Secondly, the group needs to spend more time collecting supplies. Since the supplies are not easily

found, the group is forced to stay in one place for an extensive period, as the people in it cannot afford

to hastily scour locations but need to be sure that they have collected every useful item. This is time-

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consuming and dangerous, as an immobile group is easily attacked. Moreover, should they be unable

to find enough food, some members of the group might turn on other members to ensure that they

have enough to eat. A large group is like a miniature society, and these societies in the post-

apocalyptic world are based on only one principle: the strongest survive by preying on the weakest.

Since the bond between them is mostly an artificial one, unlike the bond between the father and the

son, it is unlikely that the people in the group would have each other’s wellbeing in mind. If the

dilemma would present itself, the individual members would choose to act in such a way that they

might have a bigger chance of survival than the other people in their group.

The nomadic caravans in The Road are examples of fragile miniature societies that might provide

safety if they do not encounter bigger, more powerful groups and if they do not have a shortage of

supplies. The people in the group cannot avoid being spotted as the use of vehicles forces them to use

roads. A potential breakdown of their equipment might stall them for an extensive period.

This is time they cannot afford to lose, as they are in constant need of more supplies.The group might

turn on itself if there would be any shortages.

When compared to each other, a life spent in nomadic caravans is not inherently safer than a solitary,

nomadic life as lived by the father and son. It is a life that has only one guiding principle, namely, that

you must do anything to survive and that you are the most important person in the group. This

diverges significantly from the lifestyles of the father and son, and Hamm and Clov in Endgame.

Ethics are of marginal importance in nomadic caravans. I will provide a detailed discussion on this

change in the ethical approach to the post-apocalyptic society in chapter D: “Past-Humanity and Post-

Humanity: the Forced Change in Human Ethics”.

D. Past-Humanity and Post-Humanity: the Forced Change in Human

Ethics

After the reinterpretation of human constructs, the return to the life of nomadic foragers, and the

reorganisation of society, I will discuss another aspect that is directly linked to the loss of humanity

after an apocalyptic event, namely, the forced change in human ethics. In this chapter, I will discuss

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how the ethical actions of the protagonists and other characters in The Road and Endgame illustrate

that there is no more room for a conventional ethical lifestyle in a post-apocalyptic world. In order to

do this, I will discuss the relationships in The Road between the father and son, the father and the

mother, and the ‘us versus them’ mentality, as well as the actions that are influenced by this.

Similarly, I will describe the relationship between Hamm and Clov, Hamm and his parents, Nag and

Nell, and again, the ‘us versus them’ mentality. I will conclude by giving a description of the blood

cults and cannibals in The Road, and how this signals the end of an ethical lifestyle in a post-

apocalyptic world.

In earlier chapters, I have argued that since the ecosphere in both Endgame and The Road changed so

radically, it should be called ‘post-human’. The post-human ecosphere implies the destruction of the

anthropocentric view on nature, and this results in the survivors of the apocalyptic event having to

adapt to a radically changed world around them. This adaptation to the post-human world influenced

not only the way people live their lives, but also how they organise themselves. However, the

apocalypse did not only change how the characters in both works lead their lives, it also changed how

they think about who they are and what they are supposed to do. In other words, the post-human

world forces the characters to change their ethical stance in life as well: “The apocalypse would

replace the moral and epistemological murkiness of life as it is with a post-apocalyptic world in which

all identities and values are clear” (Berger 8). In After the End: Representations of Post-apocalypse,

James Berger argues that apocalyptic events influence how people think about their own ethical

position and how they act in the world after the apocalypse, and that these positions and actions are

more distinct from each other. An example of this is the ‘us versus them’ mentality that is found in

both Endgame as The Road. In essence, everyone that is not a close friend or that does not belong to

the extended group of family is a potential enemy.

This distinction between friend and foe is represented in The Road by the father caring for his son’s

survival after the suicide of his wife. His son is the single important person in his life. He does not

care for other people: “He’s going to die. We cant [sic] share what we have or we’ll die too.”

(McCarthy 53). The father spends almost his entire day looking after the wellbeing of his child, but

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also teaches him how to survive on his own, as he knows that he will not be around indefinitely to

protect him from the dangers in the world.

In a flashback, the father and his wife discuss their situation and whether it is still worth trying to

survive in a world filled with people who want to do horrible things to them: “Sooner or later they

will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and

kill us and eat us and you wont face it” (McCarthy 58), especially if there is almost nothing left that is

worth living for: “We’re not survivors. We’re the walking dead in a horror film” (McCarthy 57). This

is a first example of how two people who are in the same position have a different ethical view on life.

The mother prefers to kill herself rather than taking care of her son and staying with her husband,

while the father wants to survive as long as possible in order to protect his son from harm.

Throughout the narrative, the father occasionally refuses to eat and drink so he can offer his son more

food (McCarthy 23), thereby consciously refusing to follow his own survival instinct, as he knows

that he is only growing weaker every day (McCarthy 198-199, 202).

Still, the father realises that the world in which they live is not a safe one and that he cannot always

protect his son. Since it is impossible for him to kill his own son (McCarthy 120), in order to keep

him away from things that are far worse than death, he teaches his boy how to hold a gun and how to

commit suicide with it (McCarthy 119).

Throughout the novel, the father is educating the son in surviving on his own. He protects him from

the dangers in the world, while at the same time, he is teaching him invaluable survival skills. He also

divides the food in such a way that the son is able to eat more than the father. In essence, he is the

protector of someone who is weaker than him, whichmakes him an ethical human being who wants to

protect those that cannot protect themselves. His role as a father, however, is expressed in the way he

treats his son when they are not in danger. He is a kind, loving man who wants to bring joy to his

son’s life. Examples of this can be found in the scene in which they share a Coca-Cola can (McCarthy

22), and in the scene in which the boy can shoot the flare gun (McCarthy 258).

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Besides his son, there is no one else whom the father seems to care about. Since the suicide of his

wife, he has lost everyone who was important in his life. He is reluctant to form new relationships

with other people on the road, as according to him, they cannot be trusted: “What are you eating.

Whatever we can find.Whatever you can find.” (McCarthy 66). He often treats them harshly, as he

only has the wellbeing of his son on his mind: “Although the father commits acts that […] are at least

reprehensible, he does these things solely for the safety of the child.” (Kunsa 59). Sharing food and

performing hospitable actions towards anyone else might result in a more difficult life (McCarthy 53).

The father and son are part of the ‘us versus them’ organisation of social life, and stick to their own

companionship. They only have each other, and only desire each other’s company. Other people

cannot be trusted: “of those few living humans, most are barely human at all” (Kunsa 57).

The post-apocalyptic ethical behaviour of the father in The Road is focused on survival. There is no

room for benevolence towards other people, the only exception being his son. The parental bond

between them is only expressed when they are not in danger, as all other actions which the father

performs are focused on the ethical idea that a strong person must protect a weak person, and this is

taken for granted in a healthy father-son relationship. Since his actions are only limited to his

immediate nuclear family, or what is left of that family, the ethical position of the father in the

post-apocalyptic world is one that is almost non-existent. The survival and protection of his son is the

only thing that is of any importance.

Other than in The Road, there is no immediately visible society in the post-apocalyptic world of

Endgame, other than the one that is formed by the four characters in the shelter. As seen in previous

chapters, the characters are unable to sustain this pre-apocalyptic society. On a practical level, they

are running out of supplies. On an ethical level, however, a similar evolution is noticeable. The

actions and conversations in the play show that the pre-apocalyptic ethical conduct of life is

disintegrating. The basic assumptions of how an ethical human being should act are slowly vanishing,

as “[i]n a world that is total desert, humanity cannot prevail, no matter how hopeful, good, innocent,

or moral” (Graulund 75, his emphasis). This is most noticeable in Hamm’s treatment of his parents

and his servant Clov, but also in his position towards other people who ask for his help.

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Hamm’s treatment of his parents does not resemble any pre-apocalyptic bond between a son and his

parents. As argued by Rónán McDonald in the preface to the play, the relationship between Hamm

and Nagg and Nell is an example of “the erosion […] of the value-system [of] the family” (McDonald

xv). Hamm actively mistreats his parents by shouting at them on various occasions, and by keeping

them in bins filled with sawdust and sand: “It was sawdust once. Once! And now it’s sand” (Beckett

14). To him, they are simply mouths to feed and not worth any love whatsoever. Even more so,

Hamm exhibits more love for his fake pet dog than for his parents (Beckett 45). When Clov confirms

the death of Hamm’s mother, Hamm reacts with a very cold question: “Is she buried?” (Beckett 27).

Even though Hamm is not affectionate towards his parents, and in this way fails as a son on an

emotional level, his ethical position towards Clov is more meaningful. Just like the father in The

Road, Hamm acts as a mentor and protector of Clov, whom he saved from the outside world by taking

him in when he was still a little child (see above). Other than the father in McCarthy’s novel, his

ethical reasoning for this is questionable. He only tolerates Clov’s presence because he is in need of

someone to look after him. He thinks that Clov owes him his servitude, as he was the one that saved

him from starvation.

Similar to the father in The Road, Hamm is also a teacher to Clov, but not in the conventional way.

Rather than teaching him how to survive, Hamm fills Clov’s head with the idea that there is no point

to life anymore.Clov is implicitly taught to be an egocentric person who does not need to care about

anyone else except himself. In the scene in which Hamm asks about his mother, Clov replies that he

will not bury her, and neither will he bury Hamm when he dies (Beckett 27). Rather than focusing on

the future, Hamm keeps referring to what was. Hamm’s actions are characterised by a “strongly

subversive and shocking refusal of the values of life, the family, and ‘progress’.” (McDonald xv).

To Hamm, Clov is a tool, and the only reason why they have a relationship is because Clov is useful

to him. However, this is not a relationship based on friendship. Instead, it is pragmatic, “caustic and

embittered.” (McDonald viii).

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From a broader perspective, Hamm’s actions are solely focused on his own survival. However, his

psyche contains signs of malign tendencies. Other people mean nothing to him, and do not deserve his

help. His refusal to share food with a father who has a young child to feed (Beckett 31-33) and his

neglecting of Mother Pegg’s plea for lamp oil (Beckett 44) fill him with “sadistic delight” (Garrard

391). This makes him an active agent in the overall decline of an ethical lifestyle towards a self-

centred lifestyle that pardons any non-ethical acts because they are done for the sake of

survival.However, this does not explain Hamm’s cruelty when his own survival is not endangered.

Perhaps he is simply a bad human being, and the condition of the post-apocalyptic world only

enhances this part of his character.

The enabling of cruel acts without any consequences whatsoeverin a post-apocalyptic world is clearly

present in The Road. Numerous descriptions of cannibals and blood cults sketch the idea that in the

world after the apocalypse, there are barely any ethical human beings left. According to Mullins,

every character in The Road must deal with the same set of ethical questions. Since they are all

hungry, […] this physical reality leads to metaphysical dilemmas that can only be resolved alongside

the satisfaction of physical hunger” (Mullins 78-79). In other words, the characters have to decide for

themselves whether they want to cross this ethical boundary, as “the eating of the flesh of one’s own

(human) species is the ultimate crime” (Huggan 170). This problematizes the concept of what it is to

be human in a post-apocalyptic world of which the only guiding principle is survival. Matthew

Mullins is right to ask the following question in “Hunger and the Apocalypse of Modernity in Cormac

McCarthy’s The Road”: “What does being human mean at a time when the ethical has been overrun

by the innate physical drive to survive?” (Mullins 82).

Though Hardwig argued that McCarthy’s work is an exploration of “the non-contingent

humanity/animality that undergirds our existence” (Hardwig 38), he fails to fully explain the vile acts

that these people commit when they are not threatened by imminent death: “Within a year there were

fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. The screams of the murdered.By the dead impaled on

spikes along the road.” (McCarthy 33). These actions have nothing to do with the urge to survive, and

it would be unwise to describe them with the term ‘animalistic’. Instead, the word ‘barbaric’ is more

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suitable, as they are done for the sake of wreaking havoc on other people. It could be argued that the

cannibalistic hunters who “feast on human cattle” (Kunsa 59) do so because they are driven by the

animalistic urge to survive, but it is problematic to use the same terminology to explain why these

humans are“chained in a basement” (Kunsa 59).

The Road is an example of a post-apocalyptic narrative in which there is a clear ethical dichotomy.

The ‘good guys’ refuse to eat people, the ‘bad guys’ are “responsible for “a charred human infant

headless and gutted and blackening on the spit” (78, 167).” (Kunsa 59). This distinction, however, is

solely based on “how humans react differently to hunger” (Mullins 80). Added to this are the actions

that are clear examples of barbarism: murdering people, raping women and children, and torturing

people by keeping them alive while cutting off body parts to eat (McCarthy 33, 58, 116).

The description of the ethical actions, or the lack of them, of the characters in Endgame and The Road

reveals that there are only a few real ethical human beings left in the post-apocalyptic world. As the

basic drive is that of survival, and ethical actions might even endanger the life of the person who

wants to undertake them, it is problematic to talk about humanity in a post-human world. Given the

fact that the world does not resemble the pre-apocalyptic world and the human constructs in it are

either destroyed or have lost their meaning entirely, “the only part of existence which remains to be

annihilated by human rapaciousness is humanity itself” (Lawrence 166). Since the ethical lifestyle

that once dictated what it meant to be human has been overpowered by the urge to satisfy hunger,

there are barely any truly ethical human beings left. Instead, the post-apocalyptic world is mainly

populated by groups of barbaric hunters who have lost a big part of what made them ‘human’, their

sense for morality and ethics. This, too, is an example of the post-apocalypse, it is a “revelation

[about] the state of humanity as modernity collapses in on itself” (Mullins 78).

E. The Loss of Language and Perception in Connection to the

Destruction of the Anthropocentric Ecosphere

So far, I have discussed how the human constructs in the post-apocalyptic world have either gained

more meaning or have lost it. The radical change from an anthropocentric ecosphere to a post-human

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ecosphere also implied a change in the concept of the human lifestyle and society, as the survivors of

the apocalypse either opted for a nomadic life on the road or a sedentary and secluded life in a shelter.

These survivors were also given the choice between foraging human-processed foods or hunting other

people and cannibalizing on them. Together with the redefinition of human society and human

lifestyle, a shift took place from an ethical lifestyle to a lifestyle that is focused on survival.

The change to a post-human ecosphere also influences the way survivors perceive the world around

them. Since the old economic world has disappeared, there is no more division in workdays and days

of leisure. The survivors in both Endgame and The Road focus on each new day, and are happy that

they have lived through the previous one. Because of the state of the ecosphere, all days resemble

each other11

. Since the characters in both works simply focus on surviving each day, and each day is

almost entirely the same as the previous one, they have no need to differentiate between days, weeks,

months, or even years. In McCarthy’s novel and Beckett’s play, there is no need for an artificial way

of organising time. The characters rely on the world around them to organise the temporal aspect of

their life.

In the case of The Road, the characters differentiate between night and day, and between the seasons:

“Cold and growing colder” (McCarthy 13).Other than that, every day almost looks exactly the same.

According to De Bruyn, the meanings attached to time and space gradually dissolve in the post-

apocalyptic world of The Road as the constructs that they are linked to, nature and culture, have been

destroyed (De Bruyn 782).The characters in the novel only have the world around them to relate to,

and this world is static. Every new landscape is identical to the previous one. They travel from one

point to the other, but always encounter similar things, see the same greyish landscape, and repeat the

same actions: “He’d seen it all before” (McCarthy 94). There is no use in counting the days on a

calendar (McCarthy 2), since they are so similar: “[t]he days sloughed past uncounted and

uncalendared” (McCarthy 292). There is no change in pace. Each day slowly moves into another one.

The loss of perception is more related to a human-made division of time than natural cyclical

phenomena such as sunrise, sunset, and the change of seasons.

11

See I.B. “The State of the Ecosphere in The Road and Endgame”

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In The Road, there is still a possibility to make a temporal division in the lives of the character.

Endgame, however, disables any temporal division whatsoever. There are no more days, no more

sunrises and sunsets: the light is a constant greyish hue (Beckett 20). There is an utter absence of

weather phenomena, and there are no more seasons. Everything in the world of Beckett’s play is

static, which disables the possibility of a temporal division: “Hamm: “What time is it?” Clov: “The

same as usual”” (Beckett 7). Since the human perception of the world is long gone, there is no use

anymore for words such as “tomorrow” or “yesterday” (Beckett 28). Even more so, words like

“sleeping, waking, morning, evening” (Beckett 48) have lost their meaning entirely and “have nothing

to say” (Beckett 48). The relationship between a human being and the non-human world is so

problematic that even the most basic aspects of human perception are nullified.

Together with human perceiving of the post-apocalyptic world, the language the survivors use to

describe this world is deteriorating. Since nature and culture are both expressed in language, and there

is no clear distinction between them because “they constantly mingle” (Howarth 69), this change of

language is found when the survivors talk about what is exterior and more objective, as in the world

around them, but also what is interior and more personal, as in the words they use to talk about

themselves.

A first example of the change of language that is used to describe the exterior is found in the scenes in

The Road in which the father and the son discuss the roads on the map and their post-apocalyptic

real-life counterparts. To the father and son, the state roads are merely “black lines on the map”

(McCarthy 43) and their names are of no importance. Likewise, the names of towns, cities, and even

entire countries have lost significance: “the proper place names of the pre-apocalyptic world have

become obsolete” (Kunsa 63). They are combinations of letters and numbers and exist only on the

surface of the father’s map (Warde 5), which in itself is a relic of the past.

Besides exterior objects, the language used to name people and individuals is also disappearing.

Firstly, the narrative barely contains proper names. The father and the son remain nameless, as we

never learn their first or last name. This is interpreted as a way of emphasizing the deeds of the

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characters, rather than their constructed identities (Kunsa 61). In the post-apocalyptic world of The

Road, who you are is of no importance. The only thing that counts is what you do. This is also

expressed in a scene in which the father and son meet a man who calls himself “Ely”: “Is your name

really Ely? No.” (McCarthy 182). The need for names is a social construct that has become obsolete

now that the pre-apocalyptic society has vanished and the father and son refrain from forming a group

with fellow survivors (see above). An additional example is found in the roles of the father and the

son. To the boy, his father is his “papa” (McCarthy 301), and this is the only way the boy describes

him or addresses him. The father’s name is of no importance, he has been given the name of the role

he has in his son’s life.

McCarthy’s novel is centred on the close relationship between the father and his son, and how this

relationship affects the father’s actions in the world. He has to be his son’s protector, his educator, and

moral guide. At the same time, his son cannot grow up to be too dependent on his father.

The man counters this by never addressing his son with his name, whereas the son always uses the

word “papa”, “the only word of its kind used as a form of address, a fact that underscores the essential

nature of the father-son relationship that guides every moment of the novel’s action.” (Kunsa 67).

The father is aware that their relationship is not a lasting one, and that at one point, his son will be all

alone in the world. The refusal to use his son’s name illustrates the idea that names have no more

importance in the world. At the same time, it also points out that the father wants to prepare the son

for the inevitable. The father will die, and the son will become parentless. Since the post-apocalyptic

world in which they live no longer contains a lot of extended families, safe for the nuclear family

(McCarthy 301-306) that is described in the final pages of the book, the son will have to survive

without anyone familiar who is there to help him out. Even when they are together, the father is

preparing his boy for the inevitable rupture of their bond.

Besides the lack of first names for individuals, the narrative does contain various scenes in which the

father and son place themselves as individuals in the world. They are “the good guys” (McCarthy 81).

Others are different from them because they are “the bad guys” (McCarthy 82, 97). This is the ‘us

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versus them’ mentality that is expressed in the language use of the father and the son. It suffices to use

‘the bad guys’ to say that others do not share the same ideals as the father and son.

In a flashback, the father and his wife also express their differences about who they are. Rather than

using their first names, the father explicitly states that they are survivors, though the mother is

reluctant to accept this (McCarthy 57). By not accepting the man’s use of language to describe who

they are, she makes it clear that she is not the person her husband wants her to be, and that she is

different from him.

The loss of a rich ecosphere affects the use of language. As the last remnants of the ‘old world’ are

disappearing, so are the words that described them (De Bruyn 783). In a sense, the post-apocalyptic

world of The Road is easier to describe, and in fewer words as well. People are characterised by what

they do, rather than by who they are, and the descriptions of the landscape around them is repetitive

and simplistic.Not only do the words describing the physical reality disappear, concepts such as

family and parenthood disappear as well: “The names of things following those things into oblivion.

Colors.The names of birds.Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true.”

(McCarthy 93).

Though McCarthy’s novel contains a simplistic, repetitive language use, the condition of language in

Endgame is far worse. Since the state of the ecosphere resembles that of total destruction, the

language that is used to describe the scenery is highly repetitive, or in some cases even non-existent.

In one scene, an example is found of the failure of language in the inability of a person to use an

adequate word to describe what he or she sees. When Hamm asks Clov to describe the sun and the

sea, he responds with “zero” (Beckett 21), as if he is unable to express what he is seeing, and must

result to a binary system to describe whether the sun and sea are ‘on’ or ‘off’.

The language use in Endgame is also highly repetitive because all days look exactly the same. There

are no other people passing by the shelter, and the characters always stay in one place. Since the

ecosphere is a static one, nothing changes around them, and the characters forced to use the same

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words over and over again. Their world “might be only what [they] can see from [their] two

windows” (Garrard 388), and this limits their opportunities to be more creative with language.

This loss of language is also visible in Hamm’s use of the word “father”, which, to him, is a word that

has almost entirely lost its meaning. Although he can be seen as an authoritative father figure to Clov,

the play is quick to state that people can easily be replaces as father figures: “if it hadn’t been me it

would have been someone else” (Beckett 34). This signifies that to Hamm, the bond between them is

of a practical nature, since the word “father” does not necessarily refer to a parental bond between

them. This “erosion of meaning” (McDonald xv) is continued with Hamm’s parents too, whom he

never addresses with the words “mother” or “father”, or any derivatives of these words. Instead, he

uses language that explains his view on his parents, namely, that they are burdensome and annoying,

and do not deserve to be treated with love or affection: “Silence! In silence! Where are your

manners?” (Beckett 34).

In both Endgame and The Road, the characters experience a severe loss of language use, because

certain points of reference have been lost, the ecosphere is static, and landscapes are similar wherever

they go. Additionally, since the post-apocalyptic world is focused on survival and less on the ethical

bonds of the pre-apocalyptic world, words that express ethical concepts are not easily used. In The

Road, first names are not used as the emphasis is on what you do rather than who you are. A

classification in abinary way, namely ‘us versus them’, is yet another example of the non-creative use

of language and its simplification.

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III. Resistance to the Destruction of the Anthropogenic Ecosphere

A. Remembering the Past

In Part II and III, I have discussed how the pre-apocalyptic anthropocentric ecosphere was replaced by

a post-human ecosphere, and what this implied for the planet and the survivors that inhabit it. I have

explained how human constructs either changed or vanished, and how survivors of the apocalypse

have to adapt to the post-apocalyptic world by redefining how they organise themselves, how they

provide food for themselves, and whether there is still room for an ethical life in a world entirely

focused on survival. Lastly, I have discussed how language itself is slowly eroding, either because the

referents have vanished, or because the world is overly simplified and static to use creative language.

As mentioned above, the transition from a pre-apocalyptic anthropocentric ecosphere to a post-

apocalyptic, post-human ecosphere is not an easy one for the survivors who, each day, have to focus

on making sure they are still alive the next day. Though the characters in both Endgame and The Road

manage to adapt to the post-human world, they do not agree with how this adaptation works on a

conscious12

and sub-conscious level.

This resistance on a subconscious level is represented in the characters’ failure of memories, their

dreams, and their desires. In Endgame and The Road, the protagonists struggle with the memory of

their past lives and the lack of references to the past in their current world. By barely finding traces of

the past-world, they are in some way forced to re-imagine and improve their own past in the form of

dreams and visions, while being constantly led by their desire to return to the world that was, rather

than continue in the world that is. This turns their memories into dreams of imagined nostalgia,

fuelled by basic human desires, and makes them only relevant when contrasted by their current lives.

In Endgame, these dream-like memories, or memory-like dreams, are mostly present in the dialogues

of Hamm, Nagg, and Nell, as these characters have lived in the pre-apocalyptic world and can fully

experience the difference between their past life and their current life. Hamm, especially, is aware of

the dangers of his corrupted memories. He is easily “agitated about the mixing of memory and desire”

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See IV. B. “The Preservation of One’s Humanity: Personal and Societal Ethics”

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(Hamilton 617), though he still clearly expresses them: “If I could sleep I might make love. I’d go into

the woods. My eyes would see… the sky, the earth. I’d run, run, they wouldn’t catch me.

[Pause.]Nature!” (Beckett 14). In this declamation, his physical health has not yet deteriorated as he

can see the sky and he can run around freely. This might be a memory of his. Perhaps he was able to

frequently do these actions in the past. At the same time, it is also an expression of his deepest desires.

He wants to make love and wants to experience nature again. Furthermore, the fact that he specifically

expresses that he will not get caught (Beckett 14) turns his memory/desire into an escape into the past.

He is clearly struggling with the world around him, even though he is incapable of observing it fully:

“Beckett’s characters are physically indoors […] but their narratives continually direct them back and

out, toward uncanny and unspoiled vistas conceived as existing before or beyond the infernal here and

now” (Hamilton 612).

The imagery of the forests that Hamm frequently uses: “What dreams!Those forests!” (Beckett 6), is a

way for him to express the discrepancy between the pre-apocalyptic world and his post-apocalyptic

life. Because of the blending of desires, dreams, and memories, his declamations are not fixed in time

and “do not exist in relationship to an ordered pattern in time or to each other” (Lyons 205). In this

way, these expressions are used to illustrate the “barrenness of the present” (Lyons 206). The

memories of the past are meaningful only when contrasted with the post-apocalyptic world. In other

words, these declamations fail purely as memories, but they create “the awareness and confirmation

of the present reduced condition” (Lyons 204-205).

Another way of expressing the past is found in the storytelling that both Hamm and Nagg participate

in throughout the play. Nagg’s admittance of his realisation that he tells “this story worse and worse”

(Beckett 6) illustrates that he is repeating himself over and over again, but seems to gradually lose the

ability to tell his story correctly each time he tells it. The same thing is happening with Hamm, who

similarly tells a story (Beckett 31-33) but fails to be clear. His memory of the event is slowly being

corrupted by the description of the day he remembers: “an extra-ordinarily bitter day, […] zero by the

thermometer”, “a glorious bright day, […] fifty by the heliometer”, “an exceedingly dry day, […] zero

by the hygrometer” (Beckett 31-33). This description of the day only derives meaning from the fact

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that in the world they are currently living in, everything is static, everything is “zero” (Beckett 21).

Even though it is an important memory of how Clov was taken in by Hamm, the memory itself is

slowly being replaced by a desire for the past. In this way, the link between the past and the present is

becoming weaker every day, as the characters experience a “decreasing sense of continuity between

the present and the remembered past” (Lyons 205).

The struggle with memories and desire which is found in Endgame, is also present in The Road, both

in the narrative as in the father remembering certain scenes. On the level of narrative structure, there

is no clear distinction between what is happening and what has already happened. The story is often

interrupted by a series of “clumps of memories, scenes, and events that seem almost random”

(Hardwig 43), indicating that the temporal structure is slowly disintegrating, as the narrative has lost

its chronology. The past is still present, but “only as a fading memory” (Graulund 60).

Similarly to Hamm, the father’s memories are slowly being replaced by his desires and dreams.

Rather than being able to remember each event or image separately, the man constructs an image that

is a blend of several memories that would have been lost otherwise. His dreams are “rich in color”

(McCarthy 20) and often feature his late wife: “[m]emory of her crossing the lawn toward the house

in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breasts” (McCarthy 139). These only have

meaning because his wife is not alive anymore, and because everything around them is poor in colour.

His desire to go back to how things were, influences which memories he recalls and which memories

he wants to forget: “Although this world does not contain actual gardens, the father’s dreams still

conjure up a “leafy canopy” (15), a “lawn” (111) and “softly colored worlds” (229) in different

sections of the novel” (De Bruyn 777). A very specific memory of a fishing trip is used as a day to

which all other days have to be compared, for better or for worse: “This was the perfect day of his

childhood. This is the day to shape the days upon.” (McCarthy 11).

Even though he cannot fully control which memories are conjured up through his deepest desires, the

father actively tries to forget certain memories by throwing away objects of his past life such as his

wallet, pictures, etc… (McCarthy 52-53), or by forcing himself not to register certain events he

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witnesses. The father realises that being subconsciously stuck in the past might endanger the life of

his son and himself in the present, and this “forces him to squash out all remembrance of the past”

(Graulund 66). To him, “What you put in your head is there forever” (McCarthy 203). By consciously

blocking out certain images and memories, he can focus on “the one thing that truly matters: the

present survival of his boy from one day to the other” (Graulund 66).

This loss of memory and memorabilia, however, is destroying the man he was before the apocalypse.

Together with the world around him, “the man’s identity is eroding” (De Bruyn 782) to the point that

he is only a ghost of his former self. By fully choosing survival and by blocking certain memories, he

leaves his past life behind and heads for a very uncertain future.

The memories of the protagonists in Endgame and The Road serve only as a way of providing a

contrast with the world around them. Additionally, they are slowly being replaced by dream-like

visions fuelled by their own desires for intimacy and a return to the pre-apocalyptic world. Both

works contain instances of the characters forgetting their past, either consciously or not, which erodes

their identities. Where the characters in Endgame are stuck in the past, and are slowly losing their grip

on their own memories, the father in The Road actively tries to block out certain memories and

focuses solely on survival, since he fears that sentimentalism might endanger their lives. Both works

have in common that the past is slowly fading away on a personal level, and that soon, only the

present will be left to talk about, as the future is ambiguous in both cases.

B. The Preservation of Humanity: Personal Ethics

Besides the problematic aspect of pre-apocalyptic memories in a post-apocalyptic world, the

characters in McCarthy’s novel and Beckett’s play also have to deal with a change in ethics13

. Some

accept the degradation of an ethical life with more ease than others, while others offer more resistance

to a life that is not led by ethics and moral conduct. According to James Berger, this resistance to the

degradation of ethics and moral conduct is common in science-fiction. Itis a sign of “some version of

humanity” that still leads an ethical lifestyle “in the midst of the inhuman” (Berger 10). The father and

13

See III. “D. Past-Humanity and Post-Humanity: the Forced Change in Human Ethics”

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the son in The Road are clear examples of this ‘version of humanity’. They are actively trying to live

their lives in an ethical way. Endgame, however, is more ambiguous.

In The Road, the father and son often refer to themselves as “the good guys” and those who are

“carrying the fire” (McCarthy 87). According to Ashley Kunsa, they “hold fast to those rigidly human

qualities […]: love, hope, courage” (Kunsa 68). These qualities, though clearly present in the novel,

do not entirely describe the ethical viewpoint of the man and his boy. The ‘fire’ they are carrying is

more than their personal feelings, it is something that “must be carried because it is also external to

the individual, something that needs to be passed on from person to person” (Mullins 90). It also

includes inter-personal ethics, namely the way they treat each other and other people in the ‘post-

human’ world.

The ethical qualities that Kunsa describes are certainly present in the relationship between the father

and his son: his love for him is unconditional, he wants to protect him from harm, and he urges his

boy never to lose hope, no matter how bleak the world is looking. They keep each other going, and

“continually reaffirm each other in the belief that they will […], in the end, triumph” (Graulund 65).

The son is entirely convinced that they must do what is good, and constantly asks his father to do ‘the

right thing’. However, the father believes that “any […] act of compassion […] will constitute an

unpardonable lowering of his guard” (Graulund 73). In other words, if he decides to help someone

else, this might lead them to a dangerous situation, either because he is being tricked or ambushed,

because helping someone else would be in vain, or because sharing food with someone in need might

result in them not having enough to survive a couple of harsh days (Graulund 73): “What is wrong

with the man? He’s been struck by lightning. Cant [sic] we help him? Papa? No. We cant [sic] help

him. There’s nothing to be done for him” (McCarthy 51).

Though the world of The Road is a “hyper-pragmatic world” (Graulund 66) in which the actions that

are needed to survive just one more day cannot be influenced by human ideals, the son often succeeds

in convincing the father to help seemingly harmless fellow travellers (McCarthy 175), as well as

people who have wronged them in some way. After they caught the thief who had stolen everything

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they posess, the boy convinces his father to leave behind some supplies: “he piled the man’s shoes

and clothes in the road” (McCarthy 278).

The confrontation with “the bad guys” (McCarthy 82, 97) and what they represent, namely a world of

carnage, destruction, and evil, makes the son wonder about their own intentions and actions. What if

they are forced to momentarily extinguish their ‘fire’ because they have to survive in some way?

Are they going to end up being the kind of people they loathe? The son anxiously looks for

reassurance by talking to the only person he trusts: “We would never eat anybody, would we? No. Of

course not.Even if we were starving? We’re starving now. […] But we wouldnt [sic]. No. We wouldnt

[sic]. No matter what. No. No matter what. Because we’re the good guys. Yes. And we’re carrying the

fire. And we’re carrying the fire. Yes. Okay.” (McCarthy 136). This shows that the father and his boy

are not willing to leave behind their humanity. With the collapse of modern society, there is no real

ethical or moral framework to which they can mirror their actions. These actions are only justified by

“the bodies that [they] must feed, clothe and protect” (Warde 7). The fact that they are unwilling to

act like ‘everybody else’ reveals that they have not really given up on the pre-apocalyptic ethical

lifestyle.

When they encounter the sound of a dog barking in the distance, the son asks whether they would ever

consider killing and eating dogs (McCarthy 86), should they be in a dire situation. The father’s

reassuring answer reveals that not only do they try to lead an ethical lifestyle; it is also a western

approach to what is considered to be ‘ethical’. They choose not to eat dog, which is a custom in some

non-western countries. To an extent, they are trying to save the western ethical lifestyle from

destruction, while they are simultaneously looking for people who still share the same beliefs.

Finding those people, though, is a difficult task. When confronted with the rather peculiar statement

of the old man who calls himself “Ely” (McCarthy 178), “People give you things” (McCarthy 182),

the father is reluctant to accept this. He knows that nothing can be gained from sharing food with the

old man. The man and his boy “choose to feed him out of a reasoning, or morality, that lies beyond

the immediate” (Mullins 85), but the father finds it hard to imagine other people doing the same thing.

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In a sense, he believes that sharing food with the less-fortunate is the ethical thing to do, and he

supports the morality behind it. It is not the ethical viewpoint he mistrusts, it is the people who

supposedly act in the same way as they do.

The ethical lifestyle in Beckett’s play is entirely different from the one in The Road, to the point that it

is non-existent. In “Beckett's Endgame: An Anti-Myth of Creation”, Charles R. Lyons writes that the

play “projects […] the elimination of any desire to make an ethical commitment […] and a decreasing

ability and desire to relate the individual consciousness to any other being or object” (Lyons 205), an

observation that is highly accurate when the character of Hamm is closely examined.

Hamm purely sees Clov as a servant who needs to cater to his every whim, and this might be the

reason why he took him in when his biological father begged for help (Beckett 33). Without someone

to care for him, he is alone in the centre of his universe. His reasoning, therefore, is not based on an

ethical choice, but on a practical one.The opposite of his practical reasoning is exemplified in the

scene in which he refuses to help out Mother Pegg, who visits his shelter in search of lamp oil

(Beckett 44). Even though his shelter and her home are in view of each other (Beckett 26), Hamm

simply waits to see what happens. When there is no more light to be seen, he concludes that she must

have “died of darkness” (Beckett 44).

Similarly, his relationship with his parents is non-ethical as well. Hamm keeps them in two bins, filled

with sawdust and sand, and only feeds them when necessary. He treats them as a nuisance which he

can silence by asking Clov to put lids on the bins. There is no loving, parental relationship between

them, since he does not even care whether his mother is still alive or not (Beckett 38). He cannot even

muster the energy to let Clov throw them out. His relationship with his parents is characterised by a

total apathy. As mentioned several times already, Hamm is the centre of his own world. He is

egocentric and only tolerates people around him if they are of practical use. He does not care about

doing ‘what is good. As long as he gets what he wants, he is happy.

As Clov was raised by Hamm, he shares the same ethical viewpoint, though it is not clear what he

actually gains out of his bond with Hamm, other than a roof over his head. Throughout the course of

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the play, he becomes more defiant of Hamm’s orders, though the final scene reveals that he is unsure

whether to act or not.

In the end, the characters in Endgame do not care about doing what is right or what is wrong.

They simply do not do anything. There is nothing to be regained in their lives, there is nowhere to go.

They sit around and wait for the inevitable: their own demise and, with them, the death of humanity,

or what is left of it.

Compared to each other, Endgame and The Road are both a side of the same coin. Where the

characters in McCarthy’s novel try to actively save humanity by leading an ethical life, or, by what

they call it, “carrying the fire”, the characters of Beckett’s play are stuck in indecisiveness and apathy.

They do not try to lead an ethical life and they do not care about humanity slowly dying. Pragmatism

is the only thing that matters to them.

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IV. The End of Humanity

A. Imagining a Possible Future: Hope in the Rebalancing of Nature

Throughout both works, the protagonists struggle with the idea that the world in their immediate

vicinity is the same as the world in its entirety. Even though every landscape is the same in The Road,

and the characters of Endgame never see more of the world than what can be seen in their immediate

vicinity, they often express their doubt about the possibility that there might be other places on earth

that have not been changed radically, or that are already being restored to their pre-apocalyptic state.

This “reclamation project” (De Bruyn 779) of nature is tightly connected to the hope that the

characters have in the possibility of a sustainable future, though there is not much hope left.

The Road contains various instances of the characters wondering about the state of the planet and the

biodiversity in it. The questions that deal with possible life are connected to the idea that they only

have a limited view of the world. They are not all-knowing and it would be wrong to rule out the

possibility of life somewhere without empirical evidence: “there could be […] life in the deep”,

“[t]here could be a cow somewhere being fed and cared for” (McCarthy 127, 234). At the same time,

however, this idea of not knowing is broken down by the father’s realistic point of view. Should there

be a cow out there, what would they feed it? And why would they care for it? (McCarthy 127).

It seems as if the father sometimes opts for pragmatism rather than optimism: “Do you think there

could be fish in the lake? No. There’s nothing in the lake.” (McCarthy 19).

Still, the ecosphere in The Road contains oddities in the life forms that have seemed to survive.

The first example of this is the scene in which the father and son hear a dog barking in the distance

(McCarthy 86). The boy wonders where it came from, the father can only answer with “I don’t know”

(McCarthy 86). What is worse is that it is the last time they heard that specific dog, or any dog in

general (McCarthy 87). The same goes for the morels that they find along the road, all of them

“shrunken, dried, and wrinkled” (McCarthy 40-41), but not dead. Perhaps the ecosphere is still

capable of sustaining fungi, though it could also be the case that these could be the last morels in the

direct vicinity. The inconclusiveness of the matter only confuses the father.

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This confusion is also expressed in the scene in which the man finds a collection of packets of seeds.

Even though he does not know why, he still puts them in his pocket (McCarthy 140), as if his hope in

the restoration of nature requires him to stock up on necessary things to grow a garden, should the

conditions be ideal. It is an action that happens without thinking, and it is an unconscious expression

of hope.

The sense of hope of the father impacts nearly all his actions. Together with his urge to survive and

protect his son, this keeps him going, even though he knows that realistically speaking, the chance of

a life happily lived, in comfort and without any problems, is almost non-existent.

The man and his boy never give up, even though they are constantly beaten down by the

circumstances they are in, and the realistic idea that they will never be able to see nature restore itself:

a “rapid return of life is markedly absent in McCarthy’s novel […]. The Road is […] pessimistic

about the earth’s regenerative capacities” (De Bruyn 779).

The characters in Endgame similarly cannot help but wonder about the future of nature. Though

everything around them is dead, and a description of the world around them can be summed up by the

word ‘zero’ (Beckett 21), Hamm has difficulties to accept that this might be the final stage in nature

(Hamilton 618) and that the world is doomed to remain in this state until the end.

The characters in Beckett’s play are also wondering about what the world looks like beyond their

limited viewpoint. Since they are stuck in their shelter, and cannot travel around, they can only

discuss their immediate vicinity with certainty, while what lies ahead is shrouded in mystery.

The natural borders at the edges of their world, meaning, what they are able to see from their shelter,

offer a possibility of transgression from a destroyed landscape to an intact or regenerating one.

When talking about the sea, Hamm proposes to make a raft so they can go to another place where

other mammals might live (Beckett 23). It is a possibility they cannot rule out. A further discussion of

what is in the sea rather than beyond it spawns the question whether there will be sharks, to which

Clov answers: “Sharks? I don’t know. If there are there will be.” (Beckett 23).

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The other border of their limited world, namely the hills, implies another possible world beyond.

When talking about what is “beyond the hills”, Hamm does not rule out the possibility that the

landscape is “still green” and that they might not have to go “very far” (Beckett 25) to encounter a

world that is still ‘alive’.

However, since both are confined to their shelter, they realise that they will never experience ‘the

world beyond’, whether it exists or not. The condition of their limited world and their own bodies

resulted in them losing all hope for a possible future. The only thing that is waiting for them is

“infinite emptiness” (Beckett 24). Their realistic view of the world around them disables the ability

for them to remain hopeful and to plan or act. Instead, they are sitting around, waiting for the end.

The characters in both works struggle with the fact that they are not all-knowing, and this enables

them to remain at least slightly hopeful about other landscapes that are not (yet) barren wastelands

and about the regeneration of the planet, even though they know they will not experience these

landscapes personally. This “inability to give up hope”, according to Kenneth Hamilton, is a distinct

example of human weakness (Hamilton 620), though it might also signify the strength of human

resilience and the ability to remain optimistic, even when a realistic point of view is a highly negative

one.

This human resilience, though present in The Road, is absent in Endgame. Where the father and his

boy still remain more or less hopeful about what is ‘beyond’ in distance and in time, Clov and Hamm

realise that, since they are stuck in one location, it is better not to keep hoping and just to sit around

until they are both dead. In this way, the works are each other’s counterparts: Beckett’s play offers

human beings who are capable of accepting the condition of the world around them, whereas

McCarthy’s novel describes the ability to keep hoping for a pre-apocalyptic landscape somewhere,

even though a realistic, pragmatic observation of the world around them goes against this.

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B. The Future of Humankind and Humanity after the Destruction of

the Anthropogenic Ecosphere

Although the state of the ecosphere, both on the level of geography and the level of time, does not

offer any foreseeable change, the characters in Endgame and The Road are aware that it is highly

improbable that they will ever see a pre-apocalyptic landscape again. They are, however, confronted

with the possibility of there being enough people still alive to rebuild the pre-apocalyptic society,

given that they lead an ethical lifestyle and are not “bad guys”. This confrontation is to be taken either

literally, when the characters meet other people, or figuratively, when they are talking about the

possibility of there being other humans in the vicinity or far away. Emphasis is put on the role of

children in both works, as they symbolize the future of humanity.

McCarthy’s narrative emphasizes the role of the father as a caretaker of the boy. This is expressed in

him teaching his son how to survive on his own, but also how to live your life ethically and as a “good

guy”. He is the only person whom his father can share his knowledge with, and as he is young

enough, he might be able to keep ‘carrying the fire’ for a considerable amount of time. If in luck, he

might even share it with other people, thereby ensuring that it never dies out. Based on this

description, the boy is an Adamic figure (Kunsa 65). He is a prophet of the past who is bound to share

what it means to be human with others, thereby facilitating a possible future for humanity as a way of

life in general.

As mentioned above, the father and son are constantly looking for people who are also ‘carrying the

fire’. They are considered to be actual human beings. This implies that those who are not ‘carrying the

fire’ are not treated as human beings by the father and his boy, and that their quest to find others keeps

getting more futile the more ‘bad guys’ and corpses they encounter. Still, they possess enough hope to

keep them going: “There could be people alive someplace else. […] There are people. There are

people and we’ll find them. You’ll see” (McCarthy 260-261).

The son’s hope is rekindled when in one scene, he catches a glimpse of another child. Though he tries

to engage in a conversation, the boy quickly runs away. When he wants to inform his father of this

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event, the response he gets is a very negative one: “There’s a little boy, Papa. There’s a little boy.

There’s no little boy” (McCarthy 88). The negative response is triggered because of the potential

dangerous situation and the man’s cautiousness. His son running away might have endangered them.

To the father, it was irresponsible. Additionally, he is only able to believe his son if he encounters the

boy himself. Even though he hopes to meet other people, he does not easily believe that they are good

enough to be called ‘human’. It is striking that the son does not need to meet the boy in order to

believe that he is a decent person, whereas the father has to engage in verbal contact before he makes

a decision. The father cannot ignore the realistic, pragmatic way of the world, and he cannot blindly

trust people by observing their looks and behaviour. The boy, however, is capable of moving beyond

pragmatism and at the end of the narrative, he meets a small family of four that is also ‘carrying the

fire’. The father, though hopeful throughout their journey together, never meets other ‘good guys’.

The fellow human beings that the boy meets after his father’s death seem to be genuinely nice people.

They are willing to help out the boy, even though this means an extra mouth to feed, and respect his

wishes during the ‘funeral’ of his father: “he was wrapped in a blanket as the man had promised”

(McCarthy 306). He is “[t]aken in by kindred spirits, a man and a woman, a little boy and a little girl”

(Graulund 72), and this is a sign of a happy end, at least on the level of the narrative. However, is this

a valid sign of hope, or is it a simple mirage? Perhaps the ‘new life’ of the boy is a ruse. Perhaps the

family is not what it seems to be.Perhaps they are not as ‘good’ as the father and the son were.

Nevertheless, it is a clear symbol of hope for at least partial humanity among other people. For even

when faced by impossible odds of survival, the ‘good guys’ seem to carry on, and are supported by

other people who are ‘carrying the fire’, even though they might not know what that means

(McCarthy 303). The description of the nuclear family “suggests that culture and humanity may still

survive” (De Bruyn 784) as the children are being cared for by parents who are kind and remember

what it is like to be human.

Though certain scenes and themes in The Road suggest hope in the future of humanity, Endgame is

exactly the opposite. The play contains a similar image, namely, that of a little child outside, but the

characters react in a very negative and even destructive way to this event: “I’ll take the gaff” (Beckett

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46). Rather than wanting to find out how the child got there and who he is, Hamm and Clov are

immediately preparing to kill it. To Hamm, there are only two options, and they both end in the death

of the child. Either he stays outside and perishes, or tries to get in, with Clov waiting for him with a

gaff in his hands (Beckett 47). Hamm is prepared to let this “potential procreator” (Beckett 46) die,

and is even willing to help speed up the process. To him, an extension of human life on earth seems

like an unnecessary and even idiotic thing to do as they ‘have arrived at the end’ (Beckett 47). He

prefers sitting idly in the centre of his world, waiting for his demise.Clov, on the other hand, decides

to leave the gaff and is preparing to go outside, either to kill the boy or take care of him. Though the

play ends before Clov makes a decision, the last scene offers a few interesting ideas concerning what

comes next.

Clov is left with a couple of options. On the one hand, he can stay inside the shelter with Hamm as a

mentor and a substitute father, leaving the child outside and possibly murdering him by not acting.

He can also go outside, kill the boy, and go away from the shelter, or go back in. Lastly, he can go

out, take care of the child, and thereby become a mentor and substitute father himself. No matter what

his decision will be, it will impact the hope for a possible future for humanity in the vicinity of the

shelter. By not acting, the boy’s life might end quickly, and with him, the possibility to share the

meaning of being human with other people. Should Clov kill the innocent child, this would mean the

end of his life as a human being, as he is in no way threatened by the boy. The act itself would be the

murder of something innocent. If he decides to go out and take care of the child, this would be a

chance for him to raise the boy according to his own ideals, as this signifies him moving away from

Hamm’s worldview.However, it is undecided what will happen next, and the hope for the next

generation, and humanity with it, is ambiguous.

Though Endgame and The Road both offer signs of a possible future for humanity, they are undecided

and rely on actions that people do or do not undertake. Even more, hope in humanity is also

influenced by the state of the world itself. If there are no more supplies left to ensure the survival of

people, then humanity dies with them. Both works seem to suggest that on short term, humanity might

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continue to linger among survivors of the apocalypse. In the long run, however, without any

regenerative signs of the planet, humanity is doomed to disappear.

C. Deep Ecology in The Road and Endgame

The hope that the characters in both works have for the restoration of nature in their vicinity and the

persevering of ethical human beings in a post-human world is one that has to be approach from an

anthropocentric viewpoint. This results in a pointless hope in the restoration of nature within the

lifetime of the characters. As Hamm states while discussing why Clov’s seeds haven’t sprouted,

“perhaps it’s still too early” (Beckett 11-12) to expect signs of recovery in the ecosphere after an

apocalyptic event that radically changed the world around them.

So far, I have focused on an anthropocentric approach to a non-anthropocentric, post-human

ecosphere and have concluded that even though some characters remain hopeful for the restoration of

the world and the ability to preserve what it is human, pragmatism shows that the chances of survival

for the human race are slim.

From a non-anthropocentric perspective, however, the two works are more ambiguous and undecided.

Since both works focus on the lives of the characters in it, their narratives have a limited setting in

time and space. They are not all-encompassing stories and offer open endings. A non-anthropocentric

view of Beckett’s Endgame, focused on the basic premise of deep ecology (Morton 2) does not

change the ambiguous open ending. However, the final paragraph in The Road contains imagery that,

from the perspective of deep ecology, reveals a new dimension of the work. Based on this final

paragraph, McCarthy’s novel is solely about the destruction of the anthropocentric viewpoint, and

therefore, of humanity. It is not, however, about the destruction of the planet. As Garrard points out,

the entire planet “is well beyond our capacity to ‘destroy’” (Garrard 205), a point that is expressed in

the final paragraph of The Road with the image of the trout:

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing

in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They

smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were

[60]

vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes.

Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where

they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

(McCarthy 306-307)

Critics such as Shelly L. Rambo and Ben De Bruynargue that the world in Mccarthy’s novel is

irreversibly damaged: “The destruction is full and unrelenting in the book, and it is difficult, if not

impossible, to conceive of restoration” (Rambo 106), and that the narrative does not end on a positive

note, but rather “with a disepiphany” (De Bruyn 788, his emphasis).However, a distinction must be

made between the anthropocentric world and the non-human ecosphere. De Bruyn makes this

distinction in his essay “Borrowed Time, Borrowed World and Borrowed Eyes: Care, Ruin and

Vision in McCarthy's The Road and Harrison's Ecocriticism”, in which he states that the last

paragraph ‘evaporates the possibility of an anthropomorphic viewpoint’ (De Bruyn 788).

When examined more closely, the last paragraph in The Road deals with the idea that humans have

gained and lost the ability to influence nature, here in the image of a trout, and to reshape it according

to their will. In the paragraph, Man is capable of smelling nature: “[t]hey smelled of moss in your

hand”, of observing its patterns: “their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in

its becoming”, and of touching it: “Polished and muscular and torsional” (McCarthy 306-307).

However, the ability to influence nature has vanished, and the world has returned to its non-

anthropocentric state, the human-made “natural order […] cannot be put back” (Warde 11). It is an

image of everything that mankind has lost. There is no more connection to nature around us, no more

smell to be smelled, no more trout to be caught and felt, and no more patterns to be interpreted as

man-made objects such as roads and maps.

Additionally, the final image reveals the state of nature before humans were able to control it: “In the

deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery” (McCarthy

307). It is this mystery that is brought back after the end of direct human influence on the planet.

The ability for humans to actively repair nature has been lost, and what happens next is a mystery to

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all. It is clear, though, that humans will not be able to witness the events that follow. McCarthy

suggests that some knowledge is simply beyond our grasp, as the “things” which are described are

simply too old for humans to comprehend (McCarthy 307). The ‘humming of mystery’ (McCarthy

307) is a sign of things to come and of things in motion. Kunsa has read this as a sign of a new

beginning, a chance to start again: “it is the end of the old world that signals the possibility of a new

one” (Kunsa 67).

Similarly, De Bruyn has read a new beginning in the image of the river, which he interprets as “a life

giving force […] that is associated with the origins and secrets of nature” and “the natural setting for

moments of insight and vision, for epiphanies about the relationship between man and nature” (De

Bruyn 786). The river in this case provides wisdom on a level that transcends our limited and narrow

anthropogenic viewpoint: there is no future for mankind, but the ecosphere will flourish again.

How this will happen, is a deep mystery, but nature has always been there before humankind turned it

into an anthropogenic nature. From the point of view of deep ecology, the ecosphere has not been

destroyed. It has simply experienced a radical transformation. This transformation will be overcome

and will, in itself, mean the start of another balanced type of ecosphere, one that might be radically

different from the previous one. In this sense, the final paragraph does not describe the end of

something, but the cyclical process of nature itself. As Garrard stated, the Earth is not an object, but a

process (Garrard 204), a never-ending continuation of change and adaptation, and humanity is simply

a footnote in this process.

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Conclusion

Post-apocalyptic works of fiction generally describe a radical change in the balance between the

living- and non-living components of the earth’s ecosphere. This implies that this ecosphere is not

destroyed by an apocalyptic event, but that it has undergone a change that is so radical that both the

living- and non-living components in it must find a way to cope with this new world.

The setting of both Endgame and The Road is a post-apocalyptic world that in no way resembles its

pre-apocalyptic counterpart. Both works opt not to give any clear information regarding the

apocalyptic event that changed the ecosphere, but instead focus on the state of the ecosphere at the

moment of the narrative. In this sense, these works deal with what is rather than what was, but also

with what comes after the apocalypse.

This enables both narratives to extensively describe the physical state of the post-apocalyptic

ecosphere, as well as the mental state of the survivors that live in it. McCarthy’s novel and Beckett’s

play also show that it is difficult to disconnect the changed ecosphere from the survivors that have to

adapt to it, as the physical and mental reality of the characters is also a major theme in these works.

Given the changed physical and mental reality of the characters in Endgame and The Road, and based

on the idea that the concepts of “nature” and “culture” can no longer be opposed to each other, these

concepts in both works are faltering, as the constructions and the physical reality move away from

each other to the point that they become radically un-anthropocentric. Since the concept of

“humanity” cannot be excluded from this, anything that is ‘human’ becomes un-anthropocentric as

well. Radical changes in the environment dictate radical changes in human constructions.

The destruction of the ecosphere results in a post-human approach to the post-apocalyptic world, and

symbols, signs, and imagery have to be adapted to this as well.

Some of these symbols have lost their original link to humanity, or have become exactly the opposite

of what they implied in the pre-apocalyptic world. Others have either gained significance or have lost

their link to the world entirely. In The Road, there are ample examples of signs, symbols, and images

that are redefined, though these examples are not present in Endgame, as the characters in Beckett’s

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play do not deal with the world around them, and do not have to adapt to it. They are simultaneously

saved by, and trapped in, the pre-apocalyptic constrictions of their shelter.

As the protagonists of The Road spend most of their time travelling from one point to the next, the

way they organise their lives is also radically different from their pre-apocalyptic lifestyle. They are

travelling nomads who survive on what they can forage. Since they only eat what they can find and

what they can trust, they are omnivores of human-processed goods. This distinguishes them from the

hunters in the post-apocalypse, the cannibals and blood cults, who choose to hunt their own kind in

order to survive on their flesh. The survival of the father and the son mainly relies on luck. There is no

security on the road, no insurance of there being another day after the current one, and no back-up

plan.

The opposite of this life, namely, a life in a well-stocked shelter, might seem safer. However, the

shelter is an artificial, man-made oasis that is not capable of sustaining people indefinitely. Though

the characters in Endgame can spend their days in seclusion and away from danger, they are confined

to this space because of various disabilities and overall indecisiveness. They are not forced to deal

with the outside world, though there will be one point when the characters are given the choice

between starvation, a slow and painful death, or venturing out in the unknown world without any

certainties concerning their survival.

The protagonists in The Road choose for an anti-social life that lies outside the post-apocalyptic

society. The father and his boy opt not to form bonds with other people. They are on their own in a

dangerous world, and remain aware of any potential signs of danger. They do not carry a lot of

supplies, and can easily adapt to even the grimmest situations. They are flexible survivors, though

their solitary lifestyle also has negative aspects. There is no one else to help them, and they have to

rely on each other at all times.

Beckett’s Endgame describes its own version of a solitary lifestyle, not anti-social but a-social.

Hamm, Clov, Nagg, and Nell are completely removed from the world around them. They still live in a

pre-apocalyptic world in their shelter while the world around them is post-apocalyptic. They are

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trapped in their deterministic little world in which every day looks the same. They cannot afford to be

honest with each other, and have to deal with the same arguments and the same people until they

decide to leave the shelter, something that seems impossible for them.

Besides the anti-social lifestyle of the man and his boy, The Road also hints at a miniature post-

apocalyptic society in the form of nomadic caravans which consist of groups of people who rely on

each other for their safety. However, their lifestyle is very fragile, as a lack of resources might make

them turn against each other, and the abundance of supplies makes them a clear target for raids by

other groups. This society is based on one principle: the strongest survive by preying on the weakest.

When compared to each other, a life spent in a nomadic caravan is not safer than a solitary lifestyle.

The post-human world after the apocalypse also influences how people conduct themselves from an

ethical stance and which actions they are prepared to take in order to ensure their survival. From the

point of view of their relationship towards other people, the people in both works live in a society that

has a clear ‘us versus them’ distinction. The father in The Road, for example, does not care about

other people, with the exception of his son. Even more so, he actively tries to avoid dealing with

others, since they cannot be trusted in his eyes. His ethical behaviour is focused in the first place on

the survival of his boy, which makes him a protector of the weak. When they are in no danger

whatsoever, he can act like a father figure.Similarly, in Endgame, the characters are unable to sustain

a pre-apocalyptic ethical lifestyle as Hamm’s actions are focused solely on his own survival. His role

as a mentor for Clov, whom he treats as a tool, comes from a self-centred approach towards others, in

which every non-ethical act is pardoned for the sake of surviving.

Instances of cruelty and malign behaviour illustrate that the people in both works have to decide for

themselves which ethical boundaries they are prepared to cross in order to make sure that they live to

see another day. However, some actions, like torture and cannibalism, have nothing to do with the

urge to survive. Instead, they are examples of the cruelty and barbaric behaviour of some people when

society fails and when there is no more law enforcement. The ‘us versus them’ mentality, therefore, is

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also a clear ethical dichotomy. In the midst of an un-ethical, post-human world, there are only a few

ethical human beings left.

The change from a pre-apocalyptic, anthropocentric world to a post-human, post-apocalyptic

ecosphere also influences the way the survivors perceive the world around them. The protagonists in

both works focus on each new day, though there is no need to differentiate between the days, weeks,

or even months and years. They rely on the world around them to organise both the spatial and

temporal aspect of their lives.

In The Road, spatiality and temporality slowly dissolve, whereas this organisation is already entirely

destroyed in Endgame. McCarthy’s novel is set in a world that is driven by the post-human ecosphere,

but the world in Beckett’s play is entirely static. This results in a complete nullification of human

perception and emphasises the ecosphere as main guide to a spatial and temporal setting.

Because of this problematic anthropocentric perception of a post-human ecosphere, the language of

the characters in both works slowly disintegrates as well. When the survivors talk about the exterior,

the objective physical reality, and the interior, more personal aspects of their lives, they seem to be

unable to express what is happening. Language is faltering in the post-apocalyptic world,

the emphasis is put on what is directly perceivable, such as actions and weather phenomena, and a

binary system is used to differentiate between various things, either by using the ‘us versus them’

principle in The Road when talking about other people, or by describing the world in terms that

resemble the “on/off” principle, as is the case in Endgame.

The transition from a pre-apocalyptic ecosphere to a post-apocalyptic one is not easy for the people

who experience it. In both works, the characters struggle with the idea that they have to adjust their

entire self to a world that in no way resembles the world they used to know. Some of these characters

do not agree with this change and choose to resist it.

On a subconscious level, this is represented in the failure of memories of the characters to give an

adequate image of the pre-apocalyptic world. The protagonists struggle with their memories and the

lack of references to the past in their current world. Their memories are corrupted by their dreams and

[66]

desires, and they use these altered memories to imagine their lives before the apocalypse.

The memory of their past life has become some sort of nostalgia, fuelled by basic human desires and a

longing for the pre-apocalyptic world. However, these memories can only serve as a way to provide

contrast with the post-apocalyptic, post-human world. The characters in Endgame are stuck in the

past, and use their own memories to conjure up a dream-like world that does not resemble the world

around them. In The Road, however, the father chooses to actively block certain images and memories

in order to be able to focus on the world he is living in, as he believes that his dreams, desires, and

memories disable him to be focused on the present.

On an ethical level, the characters in McCarthy’s novel resist the degradation of the world around

them by referring to themselves as “the good guys”. The father and his boy are trying to live an

ethical life in a hyper-pragmatic world. By “carrying the fire”, they choose not to give up on what it is

that makes them human, and this differs greatly from “the bad guys” who have opted to choose

survival as the only moral conduct in life. In Endgame, the division between right and wrong is more

ambiguous. Hamm and Clov are driven by a total lack of apathy for anyone else but themselves.

They do not care about an ethical lifestyle and the slow death of humanity. The only thing that matters

is whether they are alive the next day or not.

Throughout both works, the protagonists struggle with the idea that the landscapes around them might

not be the same as the entire world in which they live. They often express doubt whether they are

capable of actually stating that the entire world has radically changed, and that every place on earth is

identical to the places they have already visited. In The Road, the father still has some hope regarding

the possibility of finding a better, unchanged landscape, and of seeing nature restore itself around

them within their lifetime. Together with the urge to keep his son safe, this hope keeps him going,

even though he knows that realistically speaking, the chances of a happy end are slim. The characters

in Endgame similarly cannot help but ask themselves the same questions. There might be a place out

there that is not as dead as everything around them.

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The characters in both works struggle with the idea that they are not all-knowing, and this enables

them to be slightly hopeful that the barren wastelands are not found everywhere on Earth, and that

nature might be capable of regeneration. The human resilience to keep going, however, is present in

The Road, but absent in Endgame. The father and his boy are not prepared to accept a pragmatic view

of the world, and are partially driven by hope, whereas Hamm and Clov are capable of accepting that

the state of the landscape around them is eternal and universal.

Additionally, both works seem to suggest that humanity might be able to survive in the short run, as

long as people take actions that are meant to preserve human life and the ethical lifestyle that is

connect to it. Both works contain a scene in which a small boy appears, which is a possible sign of the

next generation that is capable of ensuring the survival of humankind and the passing of ‘the fire’ that

is an ethical stance in life. The nuclear family at the end of The Road is a strong sign that there might

be hope for another generation of ‘good guys’, though the harsh and violent reactions of Hamm and

Clov to the appearance of the child illustrates that this hope is far less present in Endgame. Though

humanity might survive in the short run, the lack of supplies disables hope for a sustainable future in

the long run.

The hope that the characters have is one that is based on an anthropocentric viewpoint of the

ecosphere. This implies that since the ecosphere has radically changed into a non-human ecosphere,

hope for humanity and the restoration of nature in one human lifetime is non-existent. From a non-

anthropocentric, deep ecological viewpoint, however, the two works are more ambiguous. Endgame

remains undecided whether there is a possibility of a restoration of nature to its former glory, but the

final paragraph in The Road reveals that the cyclical pattern of the ecosphere is something humans are

incapable of understanding. The image of the trout illustrates that mankind has gained and lost the

ability to control and shape nature, and that what has happened before, and what happens after, is a

great mystery. The ‘humming’ that is described is a sign of things in motion, of a transformation that

might be taking place. Though the anthropocentric ecosphere has been destroyed, and humanity is

bound to die with it, a deep ecological viewpoint reveals not the end, but perhaps another step in the

cyclical process that is nature itself.

[68]

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“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the

amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in

your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were

maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be

made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed

of mystery.”

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”, pg. 306-307