Above all else, food is the main commodity that keeps the human race alive… What would it be like if it all withered away? This is how the world depicted in The Road deteriorated -- a chain reaction after a worldwide crop epidemic broke out. Crop diseases, even in small quantities, are devastating and a worldwide crop disease would leave us without hope. Through a fatal domino effect, the world as previously known would break down at the hands of a crop epidemic leading to dry enough conditions for fire, the spread of disease, and starvation.
Our theory behind why the world in The Road collapsed is all based around a devastating plant disease in crops across the globe. This crop disease would be an easily transmittable one with the ability to jump across species of both plants and animals, including humans. The crops would be first and cause “field[s] of dead grass” (McCarthy 105). This disease would begin in a singular, focalized area where animals would graze. Animals, through hunting and trading/shipping them across the world, would assist in the spread of the deadly ailment. With the spread of disease already underway and irreversible, this would open the door for drought and then fire which would be “burning high in the mountains … at night [allowing them to] see the light from deep orange soot-fall” (McCarthy 30). The fires would rage across the glo...
