For my capstone, I researched the history of printmaking and its role in social movements. I then designed, carved, and printed my own linocut prints about the issues and movements I care about. I will be distributing copies of my prints, to friends and family, as well as around my neighborhood. I chose this project because I have a passion for printmaking, as well as social justice, and I was interested in seeing how they go hand in hand, in the past and present. I also wanted to learn more about printmaking technique, and be able to work on my printmaking skills in a fulfilling way. I’m really proud of my final prints, and I plan on continuing to make more prints and collaborate with other artists and activists in Philadelphia to make art for change.

I choose to track odd, out-of-place imagery throughout The Road. I noticed a few of these scenes while reading, but found many more while searching for similar scenes. The ones I noticed first were when the boy plays his flute on the road (77), and when they eat dinner with fine china in a once-glamorous house (209). These were most obvious because the strangeness of the scene is often pointed out by one of the characters themselves. In the dinner scene, McCarthy writes, “They ate slowly out of bone china bowls, sitting at opposite sides of the table with a single candle burning between them. The pistol lying to hand like another dining implement.” (209) The reference to the pistol highlights the strangeness and contradiction of their situation. They’re dirty, starving, and don’t have an end goal. They’re running from cannibals, narrowly escaping death every day, and they’ve seen horrors that will haunt them forever. And yet they’re sitting on opposite ends of this table, illuminated by candlelight, and eating canned food out of ornate bowls like they’re at a fancy Victorian dinner. One way to interpret this vivid contradiction is an attempt at dark humor by McCarthy, a sort of twisted satirical commentary of their situation and the world they’re living in. In such a serious, desperate book, he reminds us of the ridiculousness and perhaps even futility of their journey to find something better in this barren, abandoned world.

However, a search for similar scenes in the book starts to reveal additional themes and intents. In my artwork, I highlighted seven other scenes like these: when they play checkers in the bunker (148), when the wheel on the cart begins to squeak, despite their efforts to fix it (186), when the boy asks what their “long-term goals” are (160), when the boy plays in the abandoned train (180), when they spot a plastic deer in the yard of an abandoned house (185), when they come across a corpse in overalls, sitting on a porch like “a straw man set out to announce some holiday” (199), and lastly when they see themselves in a mirror and don’t recognize themselves (132). Each of these scenes is incredibly strange and awkward, highlighting the bizarre remnants of the world before. However, these are also small moments of humanity - the little boy playing with his father, the humor of a squeaking wheel in an apocalyptic landscape, and the grief and horror of finding human artifacts and remains in unexpected places. These moments make up an odd, and seemingly random collection of slivers of light and humanity in a gray and desolate world. McCarthy seems to be reminding us that humanity will remain, even in the most horrific and desperate of times. It may show up in odd and uncomfortable ways, but it will remain.

I chose to depict the scene before the Ceremony, when everyone gathers in the sitting room to read the Bible. This scene is very visual and physical, with everyone gathered awkwardly, waiting for the Commander. Everyone has their spot in the room, dictated by their role in the household. I could very clearly picture this scene - everyone in their distinct colors, in this ornate, victorian sitting room that seems unused until this moment.

When the Commander comes in, Offred says “He manages to appear puzzled, as if he can’t quite remember how we all got in here. As if we are something he inherited, like a Victorian pump organ, and he hasn’t figured out what to do with us. What we are worth.,” (Atwood, 87) The people waiting for the Commander are presented as an assortment, a collection even, and one that doesn’t seem very valuable. The image is even clearer after she says this, and so is the significance of this moment. This is the gathering of the household, revealing the true hierarchy - the Commander above all else. The wife is stripped of her illusion of power during this moment and the rest of the Ceremony. This is not her house, as much as she acts like it is. They are all under the rule of the Commander, under the ownership of the Commander. Offred asks, “…If he were to falter, fail, or die what would become of us?” (Atwood, 88) They are nothing without him. He provides them with the small amount of safety and power they have now. They are his property. Like objects, they will be sent off to an unknown place, lost, powerless, and purposeless without him. All of that becomes clear in this moment, for Offred and the reader.

I chose to depict the women and Nick as mere colors, with no other identifying features, because they aren’t seen as fully human by the Commander and the larger society. They are defined by their duty to their society and have no value outside of their household role. They are painted, rather than drawn to differentiate them from the Commander and the room, his room. The Commander is depicted as a human because his humanness is the only one that is valued by this society. The others are just extras, a piece of his world.

I also read the description of the room very carefully and tried to replicate it the best I could. Offred mentions the symmetry of the room, so I made the room completely symmetrical except for the group of people and the table with the Bible. She talks about the daffodils on the table next to the sofa, and the ornate chairs the Commander and Wife sit in. The mantel is described in great detail, with dried flowers on either side and silver candlesticks on either side of the mirror, which is flanked by old paintings of women. I included all of these because the physicality and atmosphere are very important in this scene - the ornate, unused sitting room makes the Ceremony even more awkward.