Reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as an Entwicklungsroman

Abstract

This essay makes a tentative interpretation of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road as an Entwicklungsroman. The growth or personal development of the boy is demonstrated in the following four perspectives, namely, acquisition of knowledge, learning of survival realities, overcome of fear, and development in ethics. The conclusion is that the boy has indeed made progress in personal development in many aspects, but we are not supposed to overestimate his growth, since he is only a growing boy instead of a mature man, therefore, it is more advisable to deem this novel as an Entwicklungsroman instead of a Bildungsroman.