Cannibalism as Cultural Critique: Survival, Consumption, and the Limits of Humanity in McCarthy's The Road

Abstract In post-apocalyptic literature, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is often read as a survival narrative in which cannibalism signals moral collapse. This article argues that such views overlook the cultural and political dimensions of McCarthy’s cannibal allegory. Through close reading, I contend that the novel reworks colonial discourse on cannibalism—once used to construct the “Other”—and redeploys it as a critique of American racial history and consumer capitalism. Cannibalism here functions not only as a survival metaphor but as an allegory of cultural self-consumption, exposing the destructive logic of societies built on endless appetite.