“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (12)<\/p>\n
The Van Der Kolk \/ McFarlane reading provides an interesting lens to view McCarthy\u2019s Road <\/em>through;\u00a0 obviously, sources of potential trauma are ubiquitous in this narrative.\u00a0 It seems to me that there are two possible avenues in applying the concept of PTSD or traumatic stress to this text.\u00a0 One is to examine the behaviors and preoccupations of the protagonist(s), see where they match up with symptoms of PTSD and elaborate on how the presence of these symptoms affects the narrative and the characters.\u00a0 The other is more abstract: to examine the overall space of the wasteland and the other inhabitants of that wasteland as metaphorical projections of the traumatized mind. \u00a0In either case it is useful to understand the main symptoms of PTSD which affect information processing, as they are outlined in the article. \u00a0\u00a0To abridge and paraphrase, these are: (1) persistent intrusive memories of the trauma; (2) compulsive attempts to experience situations similar to the original trauma; (3) active attempts to avoid triggers for trauma-related emotions, and overall \u201cnumbing of responsiveness\u201d; (4) loss of ability to control physiological responses to stress; (5) problems with \u201cattention, distractibility, and stimulus discrimination\u201d; and (6)\u00a0 changes in \u201cpsychological defense mechanisms and personal identity\u201d \u00a0(McFarlane, Van Der Volk 9).<\/p>\n The presence of intrusive memories is obvious in the narrative, as is the attempt to avoid triggering the emotions associated with these memories.\u00a0 The main traumatic memories are those associated with the father\u2019s wife.\u00a0 These appear especially on pages 52-59.\u00a0 The father makes an active attempt to repress these memories; this is physically represented in his decision to abandon the photograph of his wife on the road (51). His other dreams or memories of a pre-disaster past are likewise repressed even when they are positive in nature, because he fears any lapse in connection with the immediate, post disaster world. He asserts that allowing self-absorption in these memories threatens their survival, and he advices his son similarly. \u00a0In the Van Der Kolk article, the authors mention that many sufferers of PTSD have trained themselves to awaken from traumatic dreams. \u00a0The father of the road has done the same, albeit for all dreams.\u00a0 Early in the narrative he wakes himself from a pastoral dream of a \u201cflowering wood\u201d and \u201caching\u201d blue skies (18).<\/p>\n With regards to the other symptoms, I would say that the extremely close relationship between father and son represents a fundamental change in personal identity and is also a psychological defense mechanism.\u00a0 The father is aware that without his son he would have no reason to continue on.\u00a0 The general trauma of existing in an environment like the Road <\/em>has forged a connection between the two which makes them psychologically dependent on one another as much as they are literally.\u00a0 However, the son is eventually able to move on after the death of the father, whereas it\u2019s doubtful that the father could do the same if the situation is reversed.\u00a0 This dependency seems to be related to the father losing his wife and also the traumatic nature of remembering the pre-disaster past.<\/p>\n Ultimately, however, it seems to me that an excessively detailed examination of the symptomsof post-traumatic stress in the characters of the The Road<\/em> is less effective than an examination of the environment of The Road <\/em>itself, and what that setting implies for the emotional state of the characters.<\/p>\n The world of the Road<\/em> is ashen and constantly overcast. \u00a0All plant and animal life (with the exception of a few humans and one dog) is dead. \u00a0The environment is extremely static.\u00a0 The only changes come either from weather \u2013 occasional rain and snow \u2013 or from the rare encounter with another traveler.\u00a0 I would argue that the representation of the world in The Road<\/em> mirrors, in a dramatized way, the perceptions of the post-traumatic.\u00a0 The world seems practically frozen in time and appearance.\u00a0 Traumatized individuals are likewise trapped in a static emotional and mental state of endless repetition, and are unable to process stimulus in a nuanced way.\u00a0 This colorless world is formed of immutable formations of stone, asphalt, and the crumbling fa\u00e7ades of concrete.\u00a0 It is a bleak world which does not invite an emotionalized response. \u00a0The Van Der Volk article mentions that the traumatized frequently experience alexithymia<\/em>, or an inability to identify, understand and articulate their feelings or emotions , and that this leads to reactions to environment which are either \u201cexagerrated or inhibited\u201d (14).\u00a0 The entire landscape seems to manifest this sense of inhibition.\u00a0 At the same time, the road stretches into a blur which defies temporality.\u00a0 This blur is only broken by moments of conflict and discovery, but practically any of these landmark moments could be swapped in sequence, or shuffled around with no meaningful change in the readers sense of the sequence and progress of time.\u00a0 One of the most compelling examples of combination of human and \u201cenvironmentalized\u201d trauma, which also exhibits the sense of temporal collapse I just mentioned, is the image of the corpses trapped in the tar: \u201cFigures half mired in the blacktop, clutching themselves, mouths howling\u201d (190).\u00a0 They are left almost like ghosts, spectral reminders of past trauma locked to one place, an image of one moment in time that simultaneously defies time: \u201cthey struggled forever in the road\u2019s cold coagulate\u201d (191).<\/p>\n There\u2019s certainly much, much more that can be said about trauma in both the characters of The Road<\/em> and in its landscape.\u00a0 But for now I feel as though this is a sufficient examination \u201cstarting point\u201d… seeing as I accidentally wrote a small essay which will now flood out part of the feed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (12) The Van Der Kolk \/ McFarlane reading provides an interesting lens to view McCarthy\u2019s Road through;\u00a0 obviously, sources of potential trauma are ubiquitous in this narrative.\u00a0 It seems to me that there are two possible avenues in applying the… Continue reading The Road: Trauma of the Psyche, Trauma in the Landscape<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2009\/459\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}