The Woman Analysis

The Woman – My Analysis

Throughout the novel, an aspect of the woman could be that she represents temptations of the warmth and familiarity within the man’s memories that he constantly battles against.  It is an unavoidable conundrum that even though all of his memories, for example the references to nature, connect the protagonist to beauty and goodness, it only reminds him of the things that no longer exist. For example, the romantic memory which the man dwells in, “He remembered waking once on such a night to the clatter of crabs in the pan where he had left steak bones from the night before. Faint deep coals of driftwood fire pulsing in the onshore wind.  Lying under a myriad of stars. The sea’s black horizon. He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again.  When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different”.  This particular memory happens before the apocalypse where ironically the man thinks that he would have made the world any other way. Although it is a romantic piece of imagery, with his wife being a figure of pure perfection, memories like this make the man’s battle for survival even harder as he feels a strong constant temptation to let the dreams take control and to simply live in these memories. As the woman chose not to survive, she could represent the idealism of being able to live in the memories and not face this new world.  The memories of the description of living creatures and nature are relatable to us and they draw us closer into appreciating the beauty of smaller things; as readers we can imagine the impact of loosing what is around us. For example, the opening description of this destructed post-apocalyptic world, “Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world” epitomises the reason why the protagonist feels as though he needs the sustenance of the past. We are lead to question why whether the representations of the memories are the morals of the world or whether they are a weakness that can be exploited (for example by the woman).  The woman could also be the temptations of letting the dreams take control; it is as though the suppressed happy memories from the protagonist are only regarded as distracting.

The woman could also be having an ambiguous function of representing both the giving of life and the temptation of death. This symbolism is powerful throughout presenting the irony of the boy being born (a new life) into an effectively destructed and dead world.  The sudden end to the woman’s life constantly lures the man into a liminal state of feeling between life and death and drawing closer to wanting escape this world through the influence of her.  If the woman represented this aspect, it may further relate to how although the boy is born, the man dies at the end and we learn that even though life can be given in this destruction, it can also be taken away again; it is extremely fragile.  Furthermore, the father is unable to control what happens; is it considered justice that the woman brought a new life but also took away her own and left the boy?  McCarthy, by drawing the woman away from the main frame of the plot, could use the woman to represent both states of life of the man and the boy; we can question whether she is just a figure and whether she could even be considered the equivalent to a human.   The spirituality the man refers to, is caused fundamentally by the woman leaving the man close to death and drawn into the temptations to stop resisting the suffering, “He rose while the boy slept and pulled his shoes and wrapped in his blanket he walked out through the trees. He descended into a gryke in the stone and there he crouched, coughing and he coughed for a long time. Then he just knelt there in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? He whispered. Will I see you at last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul?”

McCarthy’s presentation of the connection between the boy and the mother is vague and distant which we see when the man reflects on the boys reaction to the mother leaving them, “She’s gone isn't she?”  Although the father must be strong and distant in order for the boy to be able to survive without an emotional attachment, as the boy has no motherly figure his vulnerability is far more evident.  This also impacts the reader to draw closer to the character of the boy and intensifies their vulnerability and lack of control to the life and fate of the boy. The boy sees so many horrific things for example, in the cellar scene where the son begs his father not to go downstairs,  and his innocence to this world creates the whole novel to feel much more disturbing and impacting. It could also be interpreted that if this motherly figure was more prominent, it would have a negative impact to the journey that they are trying to achieve; the woman within the man’s perception appears to be someone who doubts that they will be able to survive, hence why she ends her own life.  The mother also shares the son’s innocence as we see when she “cradles her belly” and “clutches the jamb” the son and the mother in this section are almost symbolised as one person all together.  However, as the vulnerability of the boy is more evident, it causes the attachment of the father and the boy to become questionably the most essential part of the novel. It is doubtable whether this is better or worse when the man then leaves as there is only a possibility of the boy surviving on his own; however we do see that the compassion of the boy inspires the man at the end, “You have my whole heart. You always did”.

The alternative to the struggle to survive is also a characteristic of the woman.   She could be a representative of the theme of threat within death and this could relate to the constant violent cough that subtly is repeated throughout the novel, “he coughed till he could taste the blood” , “he was coughing again”, “he stood leaning on post coughing”, “he concentrated to stifle the cough”. The man’s perception of the woman and the way she deserted him is a resentful one which is displayed in her final words to him, “It’s meaningless...Then don’t. I can’t help you... Maybe you will be good at this. I doubt it, but who knows...No I will not. I cannot.” Her absence creates this suppressed underlying thought of their struggle to survival being one that is fragile and vulnerable which the boy at moment cannot understand, “I wish I was with my mum” The woman appears to have escaped this survival and is able to be in a better world. Also, we can see the man’s internal struggle as he doesn't reference to death as a “nightmare” it is described as a “dream” which connotes something that he desires but as we see he is unable to fulfill as he is protecting his “warrant” (the boy).