The Tennis Shoe Army and Leviathan: Relics and Specters of Big Government in The Road
Differently than many other post-apocalyptic stories, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road offers scant evidence of either the influence of political events or ideas or of an authorial ambition to construct a vision of political order. To the extent that parallels can be drawn between the novel’s presentation...
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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 |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12285 |
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| Summary: | Differently than many other post-apocalyptic stories, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road offers scant evidence of either the influence of political events or ideas or of an authorial ambition to construct a vision of political order. To the extent that parallels can be drawn between the novel’s presentation of a tennis shoe army on the march, which resembles dream-like processions in other McCarthy novels, and Thomas Hobbes’ vision of an absolutist government as Leviathan, this essay argues that The Road can be seen as conveying an aversion to the impersonal rule of the bureaucratic state. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-9336 |