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Originally Posted by GizmoPlanet
McCarthy was probably taking a bit of poetic licence with the aftereffects of nuclear war so he could give the reader a sense of just how unremittingly bleak everything was. Even in the heaviest areas of fallout, the radiation levels would be pretty low two weeks after the attack. Low enough not to pose any serious danger, anyway. You'd still want to stay well away from the actual ground zero areas, of course, as they would be quite radioactive for a very long time to come.
No question that some animals would survive, simply because they would have been in areas that got little or no fallout. However, in large parts of the US eastern seaboard, where the story appears to be set, there'd be a lot of dead animals -and people too. Fish would survive anywhere because fallout only contaminates the top layer of a body of water and any radioactivity would be neutralized by the water itself at sub-surface levels.
However, nuclear winter (as an outcome of a global nuclear war) is a phenomenon that was debunked a long time ago. Sure, you would have some obscuration of the lower atmosphere for a couple of weeks in zones where lots of ground bursts took place. In such areas the temperature would drop a bit, but not permanently.
Having said all that, I also realize that The Road was not meant to be a realistic appraisal of the effects of general nuclear war.  |
I agree that it's not suppose to be about the effect of a nuclear war, but only because the novel isn't about the event that caused the disaster. The novel is about a father and son trying to survive in a world that gives them no hope for survival. The hope that they carry is unrelated to the world; it's the hope for the survival of humanity. As for the nuclear war being the cause for the emptiness of the world, I completely disagree. Although the setting is in North America, it is easily assumed that the entire world has been affected from the event. McCarthy deliberately doesn't explain the event so that even more of the novel can be focussed on the father and the boy. We arn't suppose to know what happened and we arn't suppose to dwell on what caused it. Also, if other continents were not affected, then that would bring a sense of hope to the reader. We would want someone to come and rescue them from what North America became, but the point is, McCarthy chose for the novel not to end that way. The reason is because the only hope that is left in this post-apocalyptic is the hope that the father and son carry within them. They are "carrying the fire".