In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, in the post-apocalyptic world in which the man and the boy live, dreams begin to take the form of a new “reality”. » As the novel progresses, the man's dreams, initially memories of his pre-apocalypse life, become "brighter" as the boy's dreams become darker and more nightmarish. Through the use of colors and distinct language, McCarthy emphasizes the contrast between reality and dreams. The fact that the man relies on bad dreams to keep him tied to harsh reality hints at the hopelessness of the situation; he can never truly escape. McCarthy suggests that those who strive for a life that no longer exists allow themselves to be deceived by false hopes. Having dreams is a natural human tendency, but in a world that has become so inhumane, man cannot even afford to retain this element of being human. The loss of the past is a concept that characters living in this world of ashes struggle with, and McCarthy presents memory as a weakness to be exploited. Although dreams are generally considered pleasant distractions, man believes that good dreams take you away from reality. and prevents you from focusing on surviving in the real world. The rejection of dreams and the refusal to be distracted by one's impending death illustrate the futility of trying to escape; McCarthy presents dreams and memories as an inevitable enigma that should not be trusted. Man's attitude towards dreams is established from the beginning of the novel. Struggling with the recurring dream of his "pale wife", the man declares that "the good dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was but a call of languor and death" (18). For man, the life in which he lives is so horrible that he believes that his dreams, in turn, owe... middle of paper... his "dead and blind white eyes" (1) ; this creature represents the evils of humanity and its failure to exist. McCarthy blurs the line between dreams and reality in order to highlight humans' inherent weakness in letting their realities take over. Through the use of recurring ideas of death, hope, and reality, McCarthy conveys that there is no escape; either from the universal destruction caused by the apocalypse, or from the emotionally destructive effects of dreams. In The Road, dreams reveal the human nature of the characters. McCarthy illustrates the gradual dehumanization of people when life changes completely; it argues that all the terrible things people could do have already been done, emphasizing the fragility of our existence. McCarthy ultimately shows us how much we depend on the past and that we must let go of the past to make room for the future..