Sustainability in a Collapsed World: Resource Scarcity and Human Resilience in Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road

Abstract

Cormac McCarthy, an American writer, explores human relationship, survival, hope, life and death,human resilience and apocalyptic world in his novels. His Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road, delves into the theme of human capacity for survival in the world of scarcity. This novel portrays the journey of two unnamed characters, father and son, in a post-apocalyptic world. Their journey exposes the sustainability in a collapsed world where they struggle for sustenance and safety as a result of environmental degradation and extremeresource scarcity. They have their journey amidst the threat of starvation and violence which creates a tension between survival and sustainability.  They struggle for their survival where they do not have enough food, clean water, and shelter to live. Thisarticle examines how the novel, The Road, portrays the ecological collapsed world and analyses the critical importance of sustainable practices and resilience in the context of scarcity of resources through the lens of Ecological Resilience.