Losing the non-human now and at the end of the world in McCarthy's The Road and Powers' Bewilderment

Details

Supervisors

Bragard, Véronique

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

Almost two decades ago, Cormac McCarthy received the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Road (2006), which has been called “the most important environmental book ever written” (2007) by George Monbiot. In 2021, Richard Powers published Bewilderment. In these two novels, a father and a son rely on each other to navigate through difficult times. While set in very different contexts – a post-apocalyptic world and our contemporary society – these two novels share one thing in common: the loss of the non-human. As death needs a connection for it to be grievable – if not meaningful, the two novels seek to revive the relationship between the human and the non-human, both before and after death. This thesis seeks to uncover how The Road and Bewilderment create and sustain a relationship with the non-human. In order to do so, it delves into two aspects related to loss: grief and the connection. This study hopes to challenge one's “ecological glaucoma” and human exceptionalism and make room for one’s growing capacity to contemplate the non-human in all its greyness and togetherness. Let us enjoy it while it lasts, and mourn it when it does not.