SMITH, CHRISTINA JEAN. What Disappears and What Remains

Yes. We can go.I'm scared.I know. I'm sorry. (26-27)In this brief scene, McCarthy manages to illustrate the degree to which domesticity, family,religion and childhood - the foundations of civilization and home - have passed away. Thehouse itself, its physical presence, has been altered. We are told that the clapboards arelargely missing from the lower section "leaving the studs and insulation exposed"; these havebeen taken by foragers and used for firewood (25). The porch and yard are littered withtrash. This outward detritus hints at a loss of orderliness and sanctuary that, McCarthysuggests, cannot be retrieved. Houses, the discarded shells of domestic life, are no longersafe or practical places to live or raise a family in the post-apocalyptic terrain. They aren'tnear food or water and staying in one for too long only makes a traveler vulnerable to attackor theft. Thus, they are useful only to the extent that they can be picked over for wood orsupplies - a utilitarian sentiment to which the father normally adheres but forgoes, in thisscene, in his search for emotional sustenance.Inside, there are less tangible losses; the Christmas stockings have been reduced topinholes in the mantle, markers that only the man can find or coax meaning from. They hangabove the hearth only in his imagination since Christmas, McCarthy reminds us, hascompletely vanished (as have all organized religious traditions or secular markers of time).And in the corner of the living room, the piled bones of some dismembered creature("possibly a cat") serve as a macabre stand-in for the family pet. In this unadorned societythere is certainly no room or resources for a family pet, and any animals, which might have29