On two possible scenarios if the known order were broken

Abstract

A literary genre that has increased its production in this twenty-first century is the telling of stories that present the reader with possibilities of a future after a great universal disaster, during which most of the population becomes extinct. It's a tough scenario, an extreme exercise in survival. Such works have been classified as post-apocalyptic; in them pillage, murder, scatological scenes, even cannibalism, the savage behavior of characters whose only objective is to stay alive, dominate. With two different styles, José Saramago and Cormac McCarthy – in Blindness Essay and The Road, respectively – show us how little hope would remain in the world if the system in which humans now move were to collapse completely. There would be a constant fear of what is seen and what is intuited, the despair of not knowing if the present day will allow them to take even a little food to their mouths. In the face of a disaster of such magnitude, human beings would have to start over with new rules of coexistence, those who were survivors of the tragedy would carry the experience of the rules that, although they failed or were unjust, at least limited the tendency to only see for themselves.