Doomsday

This week, I was intrigued by the difference between coping methods in the post-apocalyptic worlds of The Albertine Notes and The Road. Everyone in The Albertine Notes seems consumed by escapism. The junkies are obsessed with using the drug, the dealers are obsessed with selling the drug, and even the Resistance movement is singlemindedly fighting in the past and the future to stop the spread of the drug. No one, it seems, is very interested in rebuilding present-day Manhattan, or even moving away from the wasteland and starting over.

I get this. When everything falls apart (even on a non-apocalyptic scale), it’s tempting to hide under the covers, self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, or food, obsess over controlling the little things, and refuse to acknowledge reality.

What I don’t understand is, in The Road, the father’s total rejection of the comfort of his dreams. He is living in a terrible, horrible, post-apocalyptic world, and he is “learning how to wake himself” from dreams of a world with flowering forests, birds, and bright blue skies. He mistrusts good dreams, believing “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death” (McCarthy 18).

I understand he has a responsibility to his son, and he can’t afford to get lost in a dream world, but I find it hard to believe that the best solution is to sleep with only nightmares for company. In a world where every-day waking life is a nightmare, wouldn’t it be more beneficial (to maintain humanity, sanity, hope, etc.) to take solace in whatever small comforts are available? I don’t think that’s a luxury, or too indulgent. Or is it just too much of a slippery slope?