I find it very interesting that even though the man and the boy in The Road have experienced a very significant amount of trauma, they do not display the typical symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that are highlighted in this article. I would attribute this to the fact that it would be hard to predict how one would react to a trauma of this multitude because we probably would not have the opportunity to talk to or study someone that has been through what the characters in The Road have been through. Not only have they experienced the loss of their wife and mother, which is traumatizing enough, but they have also experienced the loss of the world as they knew it. I think it is appropriate that they are not experiencing any signs or symptoms of PTSD because, like I said before, I do not think that people who have experienced such a significant tragedy would respond in a way that would be considered “typical”.
Even though the characters in the book do not exhibit the typical symptoms of PTSD, I do think that it is worth mentioning that remembering or flashbacks is one of the main components of PTSD, and flashbacks are something that the man in the book experiences. Flashbacks are the only way that we know the wife or are told her story, so it is interesting that while they don’t exhibit the normal signs of PTSD, there is a hint of it.
I’ll agree that the loss of the world goes beyond “typical” trauma, but I’m hesitant to say flashbacks are the only symptom the man and boy display. Their world is so saturated with trauma that I think even the structure of the novel itself (the sparseness of language, the lack of names, the disorienting sense of time) is traumatized.