The catastrophic event and its real and virtual traumatic effect overwhelms one’s ability to survive. It is not expected, people are unprepared for it and desperate to prevent it. Everytime the scenes are replayed, anxiety and fear grows and make one feel numb. In my opinion, media, photography and cinema manipulate one’s feelings and truths, and destroy our horizon of meanings, then pose its own entity and meanings through subconscious. But in literature, with close reading, one tends to search for a different meaning. Of course photography and cinema may give different meanings underneath, but their visuality is very direct and may manipulate one’s ability to understand. On the contrary in literature, at least in my opinion, in a book like this one is forced to take the narrative as a text and seek plurality of meanings.

Cormac McCarthy’s  Pulitzer Prize-Winning book ‘The Road’ is a great example to study on as all the elements of 9/11 and the unique American history are used. An unidentified terror attack is present in the both cases – I use the word ‘terror’ for both because what had happened in the book creates terror too- and one trembles while trying to figure what is happening both in the real life and in the book. Right, terrorism and its impact destroys our horizon of meanings. To describe this idea more clearly I want to cite Redfield’s own words: “There is something particularly virtual and hyperreal about the central ‘9/11’ event -the World Trade Center catastrophe. It is horrifically present and strangely unreal.”  In ‘The Road’ a catastrophe happens, we do not know for certain how and why. 

The attacks of 9/11 target both literal damage and  symbolic damage; and, the destruction of the symbols pave the way to new symbols: a name-date ‘9/11’, the terms ‘ground zero’ and ‘war on terror’. The name-date has a rhetorical power and the term ground zero promises a new beginning, which is constantly used by the US mainstream with ‘Everything changed that day.’ slogan.  “The name ‘ground zero’ reverses the direction of the targeting process: ‘They’ targeted ‘us’.” claims Redfield. The US benefit from the disorder and target the enemy by so-called innocence; thus justifying their oncoming events ‘the war on terror’. A new era is yet to come.

 In ‘The Road’ the unknown catastrophe destructs the motherland, taking it to ground-zero leaving the place in ash and dust, just like the destruction of the twin towers, one of the symbols of America, leaving Manhattan in ash and dust. Manhattan carries most of the America’s symbols, like world trade center, the statue of liberty. An attack to there means an attack to the world economy, liberty, the city upon a hill whose mission is to transform the world, thus civilization. 

The reader just knows the time 1.17 which is an analogy to 11 September 2001, rendered in numbers and the year omitted 9/11, is out of the linear course of time, confusing what is past and what is future, creates obscurity about if it would happen again or not. It purely represents what it has to tell and is understood universally. It is a political slogan repeated obsessively. But McCarthy transforms this element of name-date into an exact hour and minute -1.17- as a biblical reference in association with the figure of Ely. We have two choices of biblical references: One is in the verse 1.17 the second coming of Jesus Christ is announced with the messenger Elijah, and the second in The Book of John, Eliju whose the wife says ‘Curse God and die’ in resemblance with the man’s wife or the mother of the child who committed suicide for being weak and wouldn’t face her son’s being raped or eaten by evil people. The omitting of names except for Ely is also an important element as an evidence to biblical references and the destruction’s worldwide effect, referring to an uncertainty of who lived and who may live the catastrophe. Therefore, I do not think that the use of only name is arbitrary. The position of the women in the book is exemplified by two kinds of women. One is the deceiver, and the other is like the Virgin Mary. I believe that McCarthy criticizes the patriarchal system in the world and in the bible to the core. 

One of the dominant elements used in ‘The Road’ is fire. The motherland is destructed by fire, as we understand from the recurring motifs of ash and dust. The element of fire reminds the fire of Prometheus. Fire helps people build civilization and at the same time destructs it. Fire helps people create tools, and manufacture them therefore leads people to work, and consume more. Consequently, people consume their energy to make money. It is a vicious cycle in which people are lost today. The baby-boomers in America may be a great example so as to reflect the notion of work and consumption in America.

McCarthy uses a can of Coca-Cola which is the symbol for consumerism, nationalism and the core of all nations, a united family; it is also the only trademark used in the narrative. The world in the book is like a giant supermarket where all the fresh goods are destructed or consumed, but the canned foods and Coca-Cola stands for the eternal commodity, and in service for survivors. I feel that the giant supermarket outlook may represent one’s right to choose, democracy and liberty and McCarthy may be criticizing Coca-Cola’s, therefore America’s, indispensability no matter what by using it as the only trademark. The Coca-Cola is also what we buy for the feeling of refreshment and unity. The post-truth capture and distort our perception.  In addition to the symbol of Coca-Cola, canned foods are products used generally by working-class people whose time and energy is consumed. Reader is not informed whether these are the last ones or not, so it may be a criticism to the notion that consumerism leads the world to its  own destruction. 

Their way to South, which symbolises the suppressed history of America of lynching, cannibalism, oil and the colonized nations of Iraq, etc.. Their map is of  petrol stations, their need for oil symbolizes North’s search for oil in the South, and corruption and destruction of the South. The notion of war on terror is their valid ground for the terror created in the South. He takes the notion of civilization from his father to create a new one. He is the miracle; but, hopefully, he will not use the innocence to kill others as his father did which remind me of The Father of America. 

The mirror effect they are faced in the book reminds one of the slogans of 9/11 ‘They targeted us’, through the binary opposition of good and bad, good and evil, godly and ungodly, and many more. The boy’s mission of carrying the fire as a good guy; and, his concern and generosity to others indicates godly features and also his mission to annihilate the corruption of the world.

Redfield emphasizes in his essay how US, again, takes advantage of the mourning, by reversing it to a day on which the survivors are praised; and actually, how they survived through the attack, uniting the survivors against the unknown enemy. The mourning is lived again and again in ‘The Road’ with the language and the narrative structure. The book takes the reader through a gray, desolate world which is in ash and dust, even the snow-white is not white anymore. I think, gray also indicates being stuck in the middle, making one ask if this is the real life or just a fantasy. The structure boosts the effect of the words used in the narrative, it is especially realized while describing the nature and actions.

Redfield extensively describes how and why the name-date 9/11 is created and how it is used through various narratives. To put the lid on, Redfield’s words are fit and proper: ‘It is the memory of forgetting itself, the truth of forgetting’, laying emphasis on amnesia created by the trauma. There is always a desire to forget and a memorial of the day, the name-date ‘9/11’,to not to forget at all. And in my opinion, Cormac McCarthy criticizes the massive effect of the attacks, history and symbols of America and their effect to world by using their own weapons. 

If I were to write a book criticizing the effect of the media in the case of 15 July, I would definitely use the dominant elements used to create awareness, to make the reader think. Psychologists say that you can overcome fear by getting through it, not by surpressing. Therefore, in my opinion, McCarthy lays bare the truths through the created perception that is exposed to us and makes us think. 

But anyway, in the end, ‘The Road’ consumed me and took me in a desolate world in horror. After all I thought and wrote, the feeling I feel after reading haunts me and retains me from all the sensible reasons for it to be a criticism. 

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Wikipedia, ‘Psycological Trauma.’

Marc Redfield,The Rhetoric of Terror.’,Oxford University Press,2009.

Psycology Today, essay ‘Trauma’

Marc Redfield, ‘Virtual Trauma: The Idiom of 9/11’

Özden Sözalan, ‘The American Nightmare Part 2’