An Insignificant Cart 

When someone generally thinks of a cart, they tend to just think about the physical description of a cart: four wheels, metal, maybe some plastic, quite possibly an area to set a child into. In a post-apocalyptic world such as the world in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, it can become so much more than that. It was a home and an unflinching friend on top of being what it was initially: A mobile storage container. This essay is an in-depth exploration as to what the cart itself represented, the personification of the cart, and even the emotional responses gathered from the characters themselves, all while tying back into the idea that the cart could arguably be one of the most influential ‘characters’ of the book.

The cart was initially introduced as a seemingly inconspicuous grocery cart with no real description given besides that. When it was first introduced it seemed so minute, so insignificant because even this page in the story had already built up the story up with such epic grandiose. It could be argued though, that without this cart, the father and boy might not have survived very long. In a way, it was the glue that bound them to survival. Without the cart they would not have had a method of carrying the larger amounts of supplies that they had throughout the story. Quite a few times the cart seemed to come to their rescue with promises of supplies and potentially shelter. If things would have been dire enough, the man could have probably even tipped the cart over and covered it with a tarp and they would have had a makeshift shelter for at least the boy to get by in. The cart itself seemed to almost represent their very floor of survival.

The author alluded to the importance of the cart, even though it could not talk, when he wrote: “Clamped to the handle of the cart was a chrome motorcycle mirror that he used to watch the road behind them” (McCarthy, 6). The story didn't explicitly state that the cart had any other specific modifications done to it to make it more appealing to anyone else save for the supplies themselves that were burdened upon it. The second cart got stolen once but it didn't seem to complain, it was just content doing what it did best, move objects from one spot to another. Luckily each time they found a cart it was a four-wheeled cart and not a three-wheeled one (like a wheelbarrow), because the sense of stability offered by a four-wheeled cart is much better and wouldn't fall over if stopped when they had to pull the gun on the cart thief later in the story. Each time they stopped, the cart would wait there like a very well trained dog, sitting with it’s tail wagging constantly just wanting nothing more than attention.

The boy seemed to feel a sense of abandonment (more so than the father) when he and his father had to leave the cart behind and “took a last look through the basket but that was it. Let’s go, he said. The boy took one last look back at the cart and then followed him out to the road” (McCarthy, 100). In a way the cart could - at this point - be compared to a used up prostitute being left in an alley way with nothing but her panties around her ankles. It was a sad state of affairs when the cart had to be abandoned. It could be argued that in a way the father and son found this cart on the road in the same way that a person might find a drifter on the side of a long dusty desert road. They both picked it up, rode along with them, then proceeded to turn on the cart and dump it when it had used up all it’s usefulness. To add even further insult to the original cart, they find one later in the story. “There was a market at the end of the street and in one of the aisles piled with empty boxes there were three metal grocery carts. He looked them over and pulled one of them free and squatted and turned the wheels and then stood and pushed it up the aisle and back again.”(McCarthy, 150) This could be argued as the treatment of man vs. man. The personified cart is a reflection of the selfishness of mankind’s nature. They will literally use something until it is completely used up and then toss it aside without so much as a reflective thought before moving on.

Throughout this essay there was an exploration into the ‘character’ of the cart, treatment of that character throughout, and the responses that the other characters show to this cart. All-in-all Cormac’s story in The Road is a very bleak outlook on a hypothetical near future, but somehow through man’s perseverance alone, it is actually more of a story of survival and struggle. The cart in the story is not explicitly given a minor character role, but throughout the entire journey it is always there, unflinching in the face of danger. For god’s sake  if someone were to be trapped in this hypothetical future completely alone without so much as a backpack or even a pair of pants with a bunch of pockets, at the very least hope for a cart without a squeaky wheel.

Oh, right ... art!

Continuing on from the last post...

Drawing Composition Class!








 

Let's let this blog get real weird for a moment...

Sooooo, oh man! This semester was INSANE! I literally didn't think it was going to ever end. But thank god I'm finally on break. Now it's time to get all that schooling that I've been in, let it float to the top, through the sifter and try and apply it all to the artses that I make on the side during break.

The next few days will just be a gathering of my sketchbooks, paintings, drawings, etc. and just pretty much playing catch-up. I have sooo much to upload, and then it'll be time to create even MOAR!

I guess I should get to it...

Let's start with Idea, Process, and Critique (IPC class):







Notes: With the apparent addiction to technology, is it more important to use our devices, or breathe air? With addictions such as nomophobia (the fear of being without a cell phone – which is said to result in heroin addiction like withdrawal) on the rise, the public seems to vote for the former. A majority of people wouldn’t consider a day without their myriad of devices, they would rather stop breathing.

Everyday, I go through seeing people ignore others, trapped entirely in their electronic devices. I understand that we live in an age of technology, but when did man get taken out of the equation. Technology has completely withdrawn humanity from nature. If you go to a park on any given Saturday, you don’t even see children out on the playgrounds anymore. I have gone entire weekends, walking through parks, and noticing the complete lack of children. When I was a child going to the park was the only thing that we ever wanted to do. We would play and interact from sun-up till sundown. It has become a very sickening problem that needs addressing. Humanity is so far out of touch with nature because of our complete obedience to our technological devices.
In my opinion the world has gone from a world of regular social interaction to a ‘screen’ society. We are lacking interaction in most forms, making way for the virtual world to overtake the physical. Humans rank as one of the most socially dependent creatures in the world, but it is amazing how a social need affects birds. They need this social interaction. The small subjects in the trees are going to be tiny tinfoil birds with televisions for faces. They are to expressly show the visual representation of what social interaction looks like. The wires themselves are to be a clue as to the way we interact with not only ourselves, but to nature itself. I plan on using small electronic devices on the end of each of the wires that will play a TV static sound. This is to show the distinct disconnect between man and nature.
The viewers themselves should be able to climb into the trees to view the subject matter up close. As well as pick up and inspect the birds themselves. The dangling ‘sound devices’ will be discarded electronic devices to show how fast we move in this purchase and throw away consumerist society.

I want to make sure to have a very disturbing contrast between the electronic man-made versus the natural element.

Notes: My intention of this piece is to open the eyes of people to show that they are literally drowning in a sea of technology.

I plan on using a piece of wood, affixing a sculptural form of a hand to it, then draping a multitude of wires over the hand one-by-one.

The hand is to look youthful and smooth, thus I want to use tape to bind the hand after it's been sculpted out of tinfoil. The point of this is to not only help the hand retain form, but to help it become more structurally sound for when I drape the wires over the piece.

I will affix the hand down with glue and more tape, all the while attempting to work as fast as possible.

I will then drape wires onto the piece one by one, affixing them down on the edges so that they can stay free on the inside of the piece. To make the piece interesting and convincing, it would be best to use wires that are differing colors and thickness.

The piece is to be represented with the wires being 'water' and the hand attempting to break out of it, but unfortunately getting sucked right back in.




I'll have to update more soon with my next class!