'The Road' and 'Mad Max'

'The Road' is a twisted vision of a strikingly near future. In Cormac McCarthy's epic, a young boy and his father wander a cross a scorched America, burned almost to the ground. There's a brooding greyness and sense of depression rampant across the novel,. which strikes a blistering mood of climactic anxiety and growing stimulations of just sheer anger and sadness. It's not a happy story by any means, and represents a story of survival and retribution by the father and son to survive regardless of the situation that arises.

In honor of one of my favorite film series coming back to modern cinema, the interesting comparison one can draw between the dystopia of 'Road' and the oil-barren dystopia of the 'Mad Max' franchise. While one is much more action-packed and action-y than the other, both stories at the roots of their conceptualization rely on concepts of retribution, survival and endurance.

'The Road' fathoms the dark sense of agony, depression and sadness by showing the father surviving alone with his only son, after his wife has given up on any chance of survival and killed herself. Thus, the story revolves heavily around the concept of retribution, as the father is taking any means necessary to protect his son. Hence, when there grows a sense of tension and danger with strangers running across America trying to find scraps of life and cannibalistic survival, it becomes all about the survival of the child.

While 'Mad Max' is not a heart-touching story of a father's journey across the country with his son, it nevertheless represents the same sort of survival identity. Max, when his wife and child are murdered by a group of savages in a dystopia hell-bent on stealing propane for their own personal use, there grows a heavy spirit of retribution and vengeance that forces Max to cross the rest of the burned nation to terminate those that have caused his suffering.

Interestingly, between the two stories there are similar ties of doing whatever is possible to ensure their survival. With Max, you have the parallel that the further and deeper he goes into hunting the people who hurt him so badly, he becomes equally as evil and cruel as the men he hunts. It's a philosophical issue that derives the concept of vengeance and survival, where Max is so angered with the loss of both his wife and his child that the sheer concept of hunting their killers alone is enough to drive him to the brink of insanity.

'The Road' is a different entity but revolves around the same concept of survival. For the father, the wife was the one constant he had when she was pregnant and was his way of ensuring his optimism promoting his survival. When she's gone, all of a sudden the only outlet that the father can carry is the son, and the whole story begins to revolve around ensuring that the boy can get to safety, protecting him from the evils and dangers of the surrounding world.

On paper the two stories don't share any sort of necessary similarity. But when a deeper analysis of the story is conducted, they both reflect similar concepts of total retribution and anger towards some sort of unstoppable force bearing the darkness inside of two individuals. While one focuses on the story of a mad man and the other about a father and son, they regardless reflect the symbolism of survival in very similar ways.