Mapping the Self and Uncanny in Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Abstract

Abstract This dissertation investigates mapping the self and uncanny as they have been presented throughout Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006). It also investigates things that help the protagonists in their selfhood mapping which are parental love and hope. Indeed, literature is one of the best means to deepen our understanding of human self. Therefore, due to the fact that literary works can not be fully appreciated without reference to their contexts, the selected novel offers the reader an opportunity to enter into the world of post-apocalypse. It portrays the journey of a father and his son across a landscape blasted by not only an unspecified cataclysm , but also the wrath of mankind in which case has destroyed most of civilization. McCarthy depicts a dystopian world that has lost sight of humanity and its future. In this study, psychoanalytic literary approach is used through which it examines the characters' selfhood in post-apocalyptic world. This dissertation came to the result that the uncanny is strongly presented through the novel highlighting its characteristics, parental love and hope are the powers to overcome the uncanny's danger and to construct the selfhood.