Christ-Haunted: Theology on The Road
In this paper I argue that it is Cormac McCarthy’s grappling with theological concepts that best explains The Road’s (2006) haunting power and beauty. Far from being a borrowed and merely aesthetic authority, McCarthy’s work evokes the Bible in a way that forces the astute reader to return to it. In...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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European Association for American Studies
2017-12-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12277 |
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| Summary: | In this paper I argue that it is Cormac McCarthy’s grappling with theological concepts that best explains The Road’s (2006) haunting power and beauty. Far from being a borrowed and merely aesthetic authority, McCarthy’s work evokes the Bible in a way that forces the astute reader to return to it. In its brutal plot and metaphysical tone, The Road most closely parallels the book of Job, and thereby foregrounds all of its theological questions regarding personhood, suffering, the existence of God, and the purpose of creation. As a result of this parallel, the novel’s beauty is best explained not by an effort on McCarthy’s part to replace God’s authority with beautiful prose. Instead, like the book of Job itself, the novel must be beautiful to the extent that it is answerable to the essential goodness of man being made in the image of God. The Road is under what Hans urs von Balthasar has called the “demand of the beautiful,” and it pulls its readers—however unwittingly—into answerability to that demand. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-9336 |