The Nihilistic Cosmos of Cormac McCarthy's Later Works

Abstract

This thesis explores the bleak nihilistic literary universe portrayed in the novels No Country for Old Men, The Road, and The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form, by Cormac McCarthy. These works portray the cause of human civilization’s death to be the decay of morality through the absence of divine agency. Without divinity present to enforce moral laws upon the population humans are free to construct their own morals, or even reject the very notion of morals entirely. Though some remnants of moral goodness still remains to the very end, that goodness does not have the capacity to restore civilization, because the negating force of nihilism is always present to overpower and negate the moral code. McCarthy's later works portray God's abandonment of his responsibility to govern the world in No Country for Old Men, to the logical conclusion of the godless world and the end of human civilization in The Road.