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When Mountain Meets Road: Mfankind's Connection To Nature Through Sublime Theory In Shelley's Mont Blanc And Mccarthy's The Road, Catherine Elliott

Honors Theses

Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2005) is a strong example of how post-modern dystopian fiction has captivated the mass imagination. Contemporary scholars have discussed The Road thoroughly, commenting on the text's redemptive journey, post-apocalyptic message or cauterized terrain. However, I argue that McCarthy's novel is not merely a modern text with an alienating landscape. Rather, the story conveys a strongly sublime aesthetic, which is recognizable from nineteenth­century British Romantic works such as Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mont Blanc (1817). These texts have a shared obsession vvith the fictional representation and investigation of the sublime aesthetic and humankind's relationship with the natural world. …