In The Road, Life is One Long Effigy

When I think of The Road, the story seems to be a window into a world of what was. That is to say, life as it exists is just a semblance of what it used to be. In today's reading, the text stated, "In the produce section in the bottom of the bins they found a few ancient runner beans and what looked to have once been apricots, long dried to wrinkled effigies of themselves" (22). The word effigy seemed emblazoned on the page. It stands out as so many of McCarthy's words do. I began to think that life, in the text, is an effigy. For those not in the know, effigies are define as:

effigy: n - 1) a sculpture or a model of a person 2) a roughly made model of a particular person, made in order to be damaged or destroyed as protest or expression of anger.

As it stands, the world around this man and boy is an effigy. This is not a world that exists as its supposed to; instead, it's a replica. A model. But that's the point of an effigy, it's just a replication. It can never be what it once was. You can try to recreate a Picasso or a Monet, but that's all it is: a recreation. The world that once existed is extinct. As the boy and the man go through their day to day actions, life itself has become a perverse version of itself. The languor, the tedium, and the necessity for food are now the norm, but we know, as the readers, that this is insanity.

Even in the best case scenario of the text, can life restore itself? If the world is destroyed: humanity, nomenclature, and society - what is left? Can there ever be a happy ending? I think not. Instead, the world is ruined - life is too. In this society, life isn't about living. It's about existence, and life is just one long effigy.