Research proposal

1. Title：

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and American Modern Eschatology

  Or  Modern Eschatology of the 21^st century America in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

2. Introduction：

1).about the author:

a.         Most Important achievements about Cormac McCarthy:

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright, who was once described as “the best unknown novelist in America”. So far McCarthy has written ten novels, one published five-act play, and one filmed screenplay, among which, novels are considered his most conspicuous literary achievements.

On May 5th, 2009, Cormac McCarthy has won the biennial PEN/Saul Bellow award for lifetime achievement in American literature, for "a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which places him or her in the highest rank of American literature".

He received the Pulitzer Prize in 20## for The Road, and his 20## novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 20## film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award in 1992 for All the Pretty Horses.

His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 20## and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 20## by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.

b.        His Life:

Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island on July 20, 1933. Cormac was raised Roman Catholic. He attended Catholic High School in Knoxville, and then went to the University of Tennessee in 1951-52. He majored in Liberal arts. His college experience could be considered a rewarding one with his debut publications :A Drowning Incident and Wake for Susan in the student literary magazine, The Phoenix, which won him the “Ingram-Merrill Award for Creative  Writing” respectively in 1959 and 1960. McCarthy joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953; he served four years, spending two of them stationed in Alaska, where he hosted a radio show.

Gradually his literary potential came into emergence and in 1960 he began to pursue his writing career in a small American town in Texas along the America-Mexico border.

c.         His Novels:

      Many of McCarthy’s works are said to be based on his own experiences or actual events.

The Orchard Keeper (1965) and Outer Dark (1968) were completed after his trips to Europe. His first book The Orchard Keep (1965) was recognized with the William Faulkner Award. In the next year he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant. In 1969, his second novel Outer Dark won him Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing. Child of God was inspired by things that really happened in Sevier County, which garnered mixed reviews; some praised it as great, while others found it despicable. In 1979, McCarthy published Suttree, a book considered by some critics to be McCarthy’s best work to date. His fourth novel Suttree won him MacArthur Foundation Grant in 1979. The above four novels are called Appalachian novels.

Then McCarthy moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to El Paso, Texas, hence the shift of the geographical settings of his later novels. His fifth novel Blood Meridian (1986) caught the attention of the mainstream. But McCarthy didn’t finally receive widespread recognition until in 1992 with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award and was followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, forming the so-called The Border Trilogy, as the events in the novels invariably happen round the American-Mexico Border. McCarthy's next book, 2005's No Country for Old Men, stayed with the western setting and themes yet moved to a more contemporary period. McCarthy's latest book, The Road, was published in 20## and won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

d.        His views on Writing:

In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy is described as a "gregarious loner" and reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. "I don't understand them," he said. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange.” McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann. On June 5, 2007, in McCarthy’s only TV interview invited by Talk show host Oprah Winfrey; McCarthy told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists.

e.         Writing features:

McCarthy’s works focus on the life experiences and human feelings of the common people in the south and the west of America. These touching epics are full of cruel violence, nightmarish murders as well as the beautiful eclogue and the gentle requiem. They are admittedly called “symphony of hell and heavy”.

The wilderness is a repeating image in his works. As a fan of outdoor life, McCarthy put most of his stories in Tennessee and Mexico. The tall timber, darkly fierce plots, simple but powerful language are the main features of his works.

McCarthy’s works are also enriched with an imaginative power. Nature, as the greatest being in his works, watches every human deeds, whether stupid, evil, cruel, or good, honest, virtuous. The climax of the plots is often accompanied with signs from God, which categorizes his some works into post-apocalyptic genres.

2)       The Road

According to the PEN, McCarthy is “a distinguished American writer whose critically acclaimed work helped readers understand the human condition in original and powerful ways”. As the climax of McCarthy’s writing career, The Road received so many encomium and awards.

The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, most life on earth.

McCarthy's inspiration for The Road came during a 20## visit to El Paso, Texas, with his young son. Imagining what the city might look like in the future, he pictured "fires on the hill" and thought about his son. He took some initial notes but did not return to the idea until a few years later, while in Ireland. Then, the novel came to him quickly, and he dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.

The Road follows a man and a boy, father and son, journeying together towards the sea for many months across a post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm. The boy's mother has committed suicide as an escape from the harsh landscape. The man, himself, has a pistol with two bullets meant for suicide. Civilization has been destroyed, and most species have become extinct. The sun is obscured by dark clouds, and the climate has been altered radically with cold "hard enough to crack stones." Plants do not grow. As the two travel across the landscape, they encounter horrific scenes that show the state of humanity. The scenes include an army of roving cannibals and their catamites and slaves; an infant roasting on a spit; and a basement where slaves, whose limbs are being harvested slowly for food, are kept, groaning and in terrible pain. As the journey progresses, the father begins to cough up blood and he knows that he is going to die, but he holds on only due to his love for the boy. Finally, after the two reach the sea, the man dies, and the boy goes on without him. The boy soon encounters a family of people who take him in and take care of him.

The sight of the end of the human world is finely depicted by McCarthy, which reveals the writer’s concern on the human future and becomes the post-911 fable.

The book, McCarthy's 10th, has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece but it has also achieved commercial success, having been featured by Oprah Winfrey's television book club. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey chose The Road as the April 20## selection for her Book Club. The sales reached up to 10 million copies in a month.

  A film based on the novel was announced to be in development on April 2, 2007. John Hillcoat is set to direct and the adaptation will be handled by Joe Penhall. The lead role of the father will be played by Viggo Mortensen. Also joining the cast is Charlize Theron as the wife and Robert Duvall as the old man. The film is set to open on October 16, 2009.

3. Proposed researched topic

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and American Modern Eschatology

Or  Modern Eschatology of the 21^st century America in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

4. Literature review:

As Cormac McCarthy is a newly-rising writer, we can not see so many tremendous academic studies of him as of other classical writers.

1)        In USA, Cormac McCarthy didn’t receive critical attention until the 1990s.So far the American critics and postgraduates have conducted studies of him in the following aspects with a few achievements. In spite of his numerous awards and prizes, McCarthy is frequently considered as the successor of William Faulkner; however, with the popularity of No Country for Old Men and the great success of The Road, more mainstream critics and media keep an eye on this unknown famous writer.

a.         Monologues, dialogues, sentence structures inspire scholars to explore autotextuality in McCarthy’s works. Christine Chollier brings forward the idea that the writer is a master in binding and interweaving different voices together to generate and enhance an impression of reality. It is the writer’s talent in picking and arranging words that renders his works an organic unity rarely found in other western novels.

Another thing that keeps attracting scholar’s attention is protagonists’ dreams, which, Edwin T. Arnold thinks, represent McCarthy’s “unique way of sharing world experience with readers”. Other themes, like wars, ethics, and modern technology, have all become the focuses of study.
    Some scholars ponder over another important theme in McCarthy’s works: human-nature relations. George Guillemin raises the idea that the writer is advocating a biocentric concept in all his books, which runs in contrast to the anthropocentric stance many western novels have assumed before. Guillemin points out that people’s hope to get closer to nature has been ruined by modern civilization. Barcley Owens, too, expresses the same concern over human’s attitudes towards nature and argues eloquently that McCarthy reveals his worry through the depiction of wilderness in his Border Trilogy.

In The Lay of the Land in Cormac McCarthy’s Appalachia, K. Wesley Berry shows his interest in examining the geological changes in McCarthy’s Appalachia. A lot of data are brought in for a conclusion that human’s activities have already caused damages to natural environment, and if not stopped, will continue to harm the planet people are living on. In another essay by Sara Spurgeon, the idea that nature deserves to be explored and used by human is totally undermined through a closer examination of the message McCarthy tries to pass on to us in his works. The World on Fire deals with the same topic, but in a different way. Jacqueline Scoones finds McCarthy’s interest in portraying products of modern civilization and putting them in a setting of nature. Scoones insists that McCarthy intends to generate an odd contrast between civilization and nature, and to arouse a spontaneous hatred against people’s invasion into nature.

Researchers also notice the animal images in his works. Major analysis include George Guillemin’s Some Site Where Life had not Succeeded, in which he mentions that John Grady’s attitude changes toward horses represent the wakening of his goodwill to nature. Western Myths in All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing by Barcley Owens explicitly affirms wolves as a “spokesman” of nature. And everything people could see from the animal and its relations with human may serve as the evidence that McCarthy hopes for a harmonious coexistence between human and nature.

b）The Road has received numerous positive reviews and honors since its September 26, 20## release. The review aggregator Metacritic reported the book had an average score of 90 out of 100, based on 31 reviews. Critics have deemed it "heartbreaking," "haunting," and "emotionally shattering. The Village Voice referred to it as "McCarthy's purest fable yet." In a New York Review of Books article, author Michael Chabon heralded the novel. Discussing the novel's relation to established genres, Chabon insists The Road is not science fiction: although "the adventure story in both its modern and epic forms… structures the narrative," Chabon says, "ultimately it is as a lyrical epic of horror that The Road is best understood." Entertainment Weekly in June 20## named The Road the best book, fiction or non-fiction, of the past 25 years, ahead of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Toni Morrison's Beloved.

British environmental campaigner George Monbiot was so impressed by The Road that he declared McCarthy to be one of the "50 people who could save the planet" in an article published in January 2008. Monbiot wrote, "It could be the most important environmental book ever. It is a thought experiment that imagines a world without a biosphere, and shows that everything we value depends on the ecosystem.” This nomination echoes the review Monbiot had written some months earlier for the Guardian in which he wrote, "A few weeks ago I read what I believe is the most important environmental book ever written. It is not Silent Spring, Small Is Beautiful or even Walden. It contains no graphs, no tables, no facts, figures, warnings, predictions or even arguments. Nor does it carry a single dreary sentence, which, sadly, distinguishes it from most environmental literature. It is a novel, first published a year ago, and it will change the way you see the world."

Academic essays on The Road are out of steps with its high praises. In Life of War, Death of the Rest, Tim Blackmore considers the way new nuclear technologies are inherently determinist, and reflects on the threat of the apocalyptic world as seen in The Road. In Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism published in 2008, John Cant studies the intertextuality between The Road and McCarthy’s former works, and suggests the novel “declares the inevitability of cultural entropy, but is itself an example of cultural vitality”.

2)   Cormac McCarthy’s works are still far from familiar to China’s literary circle.

 From the data from CNKI, it is clear that Cormac McCarthy has gained Chinese Critics’ attention only in recent years, especially after the release of the movie No country for Old Men. Before 2007, there are only two essays on Cormac McCarthy, while since 2007, 5 essays and 5 graduate theses have chosen this writer and his works, two of which are based on The Road. However, those two just introduce the plots of the novel and some relevant information.

3)  About Eschatology

Eschatology (from the Greek , Eschatos meaning "last" and -logy meaning "the study of") is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with what is believed to be the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world. While in mysticism the phrase refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and reunion with the Divine, in many traditional religions it is taught as an actual future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, and the end of days.

Most modern eschatology and apocalypticism, both religious and secular, involves the violent disruption or destruction of the world, whereas Christian and Jewish eschatologies view the end times as the consummation or perfection of God's creation of the world.

Eschatology concerns the things hoped for, yet to be revealed. The return of Jesus Christ is the most important eschatological event. With the coming of Christ, Christians anticipate a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. The last enemy, death, will be vanquished. When Jesus Christ comes, the dead in Christ are going to be raised from the dead and they will be changed into heavenly bodies (immortal bodies) and they will be taken (rapture). But the wicked dead will be raised and will not be changed but they will be in their state when they died (mortal bodies).

The eschatological summary which speaks of the "four last things" (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) is popular rather than scientific. For systematic treatment it is best to distinguish between (A) individual and (B) universal and cosmic eschatology:

4)      Historical background: the post 9/11 effect on the development of American literature

The first signs of the period after 911 in U.S were those of bewilderment. The situation which U.S entered had not been experienced before. On September11, 2001, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon dramatically altered American society and culture in ways few would have predicted. The tragic event has raised an awareness of collective dangers. Although postmodernism contains such categories as apocalyptic or catastrophe theory or prophetic pessimism, broadly undertaken by many American authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Don Delillo, Philip Roth and many others, the 9/11 with its physical and moral consequences was nothing that could have been predicted. It was and is still the long-lasting trauma that the country has experienced but has not recovered from yet. The country has fallen into the trap of “the destructive seventeenth-century Puritan extreme binary thinking of God versus Satan, Good versus Evil, Success versus Failure and US versus Them”. Mainly, these cardinal points appear in American literature of the 21st century. Researchers point out that American literature in the 21st century is influenced by the events of that terrible day and by the ways that the U.S. government responded.

The earlier and later novels of this post 9/11 period demonstrates both fear and interest of the public. Critics point out the symbolism of the attack on the heart of the financial center of the western world and the strike on the Pentagon, the heart of the military might of America. Postmodernism lay buried in the rubble on that fateful day. On the other hand, 9/11 is the day the new century began in many ways: the tragic event initiated many irreversible changes in the American society and culture. Immediately after the event the country was starting on the devastating road of estrangement.

     American authors explore the individual self, describing the search for spiritual meaning and moral values. The burdens of modern life and the torments of the soul, depicting the psychological trauma and a strange sense of unreality that individuals experience in the face of human cruelty, brutality and incomprehensible evil. The authors turn to experimentation with the possibilities of fiction such as intertextuality, narrative techniques and the structure of the novel. They search for the answers to the questions: who is guilty for the tragic events? Who or what makes people, like the characters in novels, commit crimes?

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a typical example of these experimentations after 9/11. The journey of father and son after a catastrophe is the symbol of a spiritual journey which may have different interpretations.

From what has been mentioned above, the readers may have the impression that intensive study has already been carried out on McCarthy’s novels, among which nature and the relation of human and nature animals have already occupied a lot of space. However, if examining it more closely, people may find many of the existing findings on the topics are more like a side dish to mainstream research, especially as for McCarthy’s masterpiece, academic attention is far from satisfied. What’s more, the tendency to withdraw attention from the belletristic study to more realistic aspects is worth mentioning.

Therefore, this thesis’ discussion will be carried out through the perspective of Eschatology. All the contentions may open a new possibility for readers to understand McCarthy’s works in a more thorough way.

5. The Main Argument (and three sub-arguments):

    This thesis will be carried out through the perspective of Modern Eschatology, especially in the views of the end days appeared after 911.

  1. The destruction of the world in the novel and its metaphorical truth

  2. The final judgments administered by the writer in the fictitious world and the crytic trial to the human civilization

  3. The Post-Doomsday Vista portrayed in The Road and the suggested attitude of the writer to the human future.

6. Purpose and Significance of Study:

First, this thesis introduces Cormac McCarthy into China, who claims certain fame in the USA but is little known in China. Surely, McCarthy will get his familiarity and fame in China gradually in which this thesis will play an incentive role.

Second, social sciences see great initiation with the development of the modern nature sciences. The melting trend of different branches of sciences becomes more and more conspicuous. Many critics tend to analyze literary works from the point of philosophy, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, anthropology, etc. This thesis offers an example of such a trend.

Third, this thesis claims its enlightening function. It presents us a new angle of view into the contemporary American culture after the 911 effect.  

7. A Detailed Sentence Outline:

Introduction

The part includes an introduction to Cormac McCarthy and The Road and literature reviews of existing findings. The origins, development and main thoughts of eschatology will be introduced as an important term for the thesis. Aside from those, a special attention will be given to how the 911 event effects the American culture and American literature.

Chapter One   the violent destruction of the world in The Road

1.1 The ruins on the American Land

1.2 The wasteland of the human spirit

    This part will analyze the destruction of the world in the novel and its metaphorical truth.

Chapter Two   the final judgment of the righteous and the wicked in The Road

  2.1 The bad guys on the road

  2.2 The good guys on the road

This part will discuss the final judgments administered by the writer in the fictitious world and the crytic trial to the human civilization

Chapter Three:  the Post-Doomsday Vista in The Road

3.1 The allegoric meaning of the journey

3.2 The symbolic image of the son

The Post-Doomsday Vista portrayed in The Road and the suggested attitude of the writer to the human future will be presented in the third chapter.

Conclusion

    The total destruction presents readers the picture in the end of the world, but also deprives them of the endless horror about the uncertain future. In the end is the beginning. The author proclaims the resurrection for modern humans. What matters in the novel is the great humanity of the individual.

8. A short bibliography/statement as to the major sources you will use.(database, website, interview) 

Cant, John. Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism[M].New York& London: Routledge,2008.

The theme of “the American Waste Land” is also a most important theme in M’s works. Also, he traces lines of development of McCarthy’s writing. He believes that M’s works are marked by the major events and changes of U.S.A.

The saving value of work well done—of the mastery of a craft, the virtue of hospitality, often offered by the poor to the penniless “man on the road” and the theme of conflict between father and son are consistently described in the latest work.

9. The Schedule for the Present Study
2008.9-2009.1 Collect and read related literature
2009.2-2009.4 prepare proposal

2009.4-2009.5 complete literature review
2009.5 presentations with guide teachers

2009.6 complete the proposal report

2009. 6.27 presentation

2009.7-2009.8Write the first draft
2009. 9 Revise the first draft
2009. 10-2009.12Finish the thesis and defend it.

10. References

1) On Cormac McCarthy

Blackmore., Tim. Life of War, Death of the Rest[J]. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 29, No. 1, 18-36 (2009)

Cant, John. Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism [M].New York& London: Routledge, 2008.

Edwin T. Arnold& Dianne C. Luce. Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy [M].University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

Holloway, D. The Late Modernism of Cormac McCarthy [M].Greenwood Press, 2002.

Ellis, Jay. No Place For Home: Spatial Constraint and Character Flight in the Novels of Cormac McCarthy [M]. New York& London: Routledge, 2006.

Lilley, D. J.Cormac McCarthy: New Directions [M]. The University of New Mexico Press, 2002.

Guillemin, G. The Pastoral Vision of Cormac McCarthy [M]. Texas A&M University Press, 2004.

Wallach, R. Myth, Legend, Dust: Critical Response to Cormac McCarthy [M].Manchester University Press, 2000.

Owens, B. Cormac McCarthy’s Western Novels [M]. The University of Arizona Press, 2000.

2)  On Literature and Theory

Wolfreys, J. Introducing Criticism at the 21st Century [M].Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2002.

Brooks, Cl. & Warren, R.P. Understanding Fiction [M]. 外语教学与研究出版社，2004.

Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern American Novel [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction [M]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983.

Pizer, Donald, (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism [M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995

Zhu, Gang.20th Century Western Literary Theories[M],上海外语教育出版，2001。

Millard, K. Contemporary American Fiction [M]. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Selden, R, Widdowson,P. & Brooker, P. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (fourth Edition) [M]. 外语教学与研究出版社，2004.

卡瓦拉罗著，张卫东译。《文化理论关键词》[M]。南京：江苏人民出版社，2006.

杨仁敬等。《美国后现代派小说论》[M].青岛出版社,2004.

Hume， K. American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction since 1960[M]. 外语教学与研究出版社，2006.

Millard，K. Contemporary American Fiction: the Introduction to American Fiction since 1970[M]. 外语教学与研究出版社，2006.

史志康。《美国文学背景概观》[M]. 上海外语教育出版，1998.

曾艳兵。《西方现代主义文学概论》[M]. 北京大学出版社，2006.

程锡麟、王晓路：《当代美国小说理论》[M]，外语教学与研究出版社，2001。

朱立元，李均：《二十世纪西方文论选》[M]，高等教育出版社，2002。

Other Relevant References:

资中筠。《二十世纪的美国》[M].北京：生活·读书·新知三联书店，2007.

袁明。 《美国文化与社会十五讲》[M].北京大学出版社，2003.

3). Important websites：

http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/Default.htm  Cormac McCarthy唯一官方网站

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsbookclub/road/road_author_bio/1  欧普拉官方网站2007力推《路》

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3199615.ece  Times online ：Ten things that make Cormac McCarthy special

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/cormac_mccarthy/index.html