1Research proposal1. Title：Cormac McCarthys The Road and American Modern EschatologyOr Modern Eschatology of the 21st century America in Cormac McCarthys The Road2. Introduction：1).about the author:a. Most Important achievements about Cormac McCarthy:Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright, who was once described as “the best unknown novelist in America”. So far McCarthy has written ten novels, one published five-act play, and one filmed screenplay, among which, novels are considered his most conspicuous literary achievements. On May 5th, 2009, Cormac McCarthy has won the biennial PEN/Saul Bellow award for lifetime achievement in American literature, for a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which places him or her in the highest rank of American literature.He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award in 1992 for All the Pretty Horses.His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazines poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.b. His Life:Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island on July 20, 1933. Cormac was raised Roman Catholic. He attended Catholic High School in Knoxville, and then went to the University of Tennessee in 1951-52. He majored in Liberal arts. His college experience could be considered a rewarding one with his debut publications :A Drowning Incident and Wake for Susan in the student literary magazine, The Phoenix, which won him the “Ingram-Merrill Award for Creative Writing” respectively in 1959 and 1960. McCarthy joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953; he served four years, spending two of them stationed in Alaska, where he hosted a radio show.Gradually his literary potential came into emergence and in 1960 he began to pursue his writing career in a small American town in Texas along the America-Mexico border. c. His Novels:2Many of McCarthys works are said to be based on his own experiences or actual events.The Orchard Keeper (1965) and Outer Dark (1968) were completed after his trips to Europe. His first book The Orchard Keep (1965) was recognized with the William Faulkner Award. In the next year he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant. In 1969, his second novel Outer Dark won him Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing. Child of God was inspired by things that really happened in Sevier County, which garnered mixed reviews; some praised it as great, while others found it despicable. In 1979, McCarthy published Suttree, a book considered by some critics to be McCarthys best work to date. His fourth novel Suttree won him MacArthur Foundation Grant in 1979. The above four novels are called Appalachian novels.Then McCarthy moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to El Paso, Texas, hence the shift of the geographical settings of his later novels. His fifth novel Blood Meridian (1986) caught the attention of the mainstream. But McCarthy didnt finally receive widespread recognition until in 1992 with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award and was followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, forming the so-called The Border Trilogy, as the events in the novels invariably happen round the American-Mexico Border. McCarthys next book, 2005s No Country for Old Men, stayed with the western setting and themes yet moved to a more contemporary period. McCarthys latest book, The Road, was published in 2006 and won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for literature. d. His views on Writing:In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy is described as a gregarious loner and reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not deal with issues of life and death, citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. I dont understand them, he said. To me, thats not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange.” McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann. On June 5, 2007, in McCarthys only TV interview invited by Talk show host Oprah Winfrey; McCarthy told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists. e. Writing features:McCarthys works focus on the life experiences and human feelings of the c