Finding Grace in The Road: Moses, Messiah, and John 1:17

Abstract

ABSTRACT While the boy in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is characterized in distinctly messianic terms, his father’s many parallels with the prophet Moses have been overlooked. This article traces these correspondences from early in the novel and argues that they represent an externalized faith, one that develops in spite of the man’s empiricist mindset. Breaking with previous commentary, the article then reads the 1:17 clock stoppage as referencing John 1:17 (rather than Revelation), which cements the story’s central dynamic of an Old Testament symbol of Law superseded by a New Testament bringer of Grace and Truth—a Christian theological model referred to as dispensationalism. The tale from Genesis about Lot and his wife also informs the characterization of the family in the novel, particularly through the action of “looking back” due to compassion for those who do not survive the cataclysm. McCarthy builds upon theological speculations that appeared most prominently in the Border Trilogy, interrogating how humans rationalize misfortune and exploring how moral systems behave across real and fictional dispensations. While The Road addresses similar phenomena as these earlier works, it also offers hope and a more optimistic notion of the future through the son character.