The Value of the Suffering Child in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

This article seeks to explore how the suffering of the child in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is used to make the social and political dynamics obfuscated by the apocalypse re-emerge. By considering the narrative through the prism of the larger sociological history of the value of children in the United States, the author brings into view how the taboo of child death and suffering forces the father and the narrative at large to confront ethical subjects around parenthood, economics and consumerism, even at the last moments of humanity.