The Road in the Novel….

      Traditionally, the road has often been used as a metaphor for a journey that pushes society forward, shown as a microcosm through the lives of significant characters. ‘The Road’ is true to this; through the boy’s discovery of another good family, his father’s death marks the end of the pessimistic childhood he has been subject to and the idea of hope is conveyed via his character to which the reader takes as a sign that the world putting itself back together, starting with its people. Constantly referred to as ‘the word of God’, the boy symbolises the creator of our world, his existence itself is meant to prove the presence of God and suggest that if God’s word has survived the nuclear holocaust, then so can his power. This gives the reader cause to believe that the world can be recreated and man can once again be in the image of God, a feeling that comes about through the man’s death. His struggle on earth has lead him off the ‘correct’ path in life and his mind has been corrupted by the loneliness of the situation; the boy in his ignorance has never known anything more than this solitude and so has nothing to compare the new world to. His lack of expectations is what the reader sees as the hope for the future as he can create a world that thinks similarly to himself and reform Earth.
     The portrayal of the road in many texts can be a metaphor for the journey from birth to death, in ‘The Road’ however, these two aspects have been reversed; the man’s death can be seen as the boy’s birth as when the man dies, his son’s spirit is set free and he manages to escape from the bubble of isolation his father has trapped him in for so long. When the two are travelling down ‘the road’ they both seem to be waiting for death, their struggle is apparently meaningless, especially as the reader hears the gradual descent of the man’s health; it isn’t until he finally dies at the end of the book that the boy comes to life and seems to have been born out of his father’s death. It could be argued that the book begins when it ends, at the death of the man; although the his life comes to a close, the hope for the boy is stronger and his character begins to become more explicit. It could be seen as trust or possibly naivety that causes the boy to talk to and agree to leave his father and join the other man and his family, but the hope is that the journey of discovery on the road has lead him to be the ‘good’ guy he has frequently talks about and he can now move on with, not only his life, but ‘carry the fire’ to other people on the road, similarly to Jesus, once again making him ‘the word or God’.
      During the course of the book, the boy is portrayed in several different ways to be carrying God’s message through the nuclear holocaust; occasionally McCarthy includes scenes where the boy is washing in order to resemble him being baptised. Ironically, whenever we see the boy washing, it is usually after his father has sinned; he is described to ‘wipe the gore’ of his son’s face after he shoots the roadrat and inadvertently covers his son in the man’s brains. At this point the boy washes himself as if to wash away the sins of his father along with the remains of the roadrat. McCarthy seems to find it important to include references to religion in the novel; the man’s wife dies and McCarthy states that ‘her coldness was her final gift’, however she only feels the need to kill herself because of her husband’s actions; his carelessness with the pistol or with circumstances in general lead him to have only two bullets left and she knew that she must die, once again, for the man’s sins. After all the sacrifices that his family have made for him, he finally dies to free his son who manages to find a new family, possibly a better one, who can take care of him while he continues passing on ‘the word of God’.

The Road Rat Questions....

On page 62, McCarthy talks about the boy playing with his truck and drawing trails in the road with a stick and ash. This at first seems out of place in the novel, as previously the boy acts like the product of the disintegrating world, he shows no resemblance to what we associate a child to be so the reader wonders why this is. It is only then later in the book when the roadrat appears in a truck that the relevance is shown that the boy was acting as a foreshadowing element of the book. It is symbolic of the fact that everything good which happens in the book is a minor representation of something bad that either has or is going to happen. The part where the boy is drawing lines in the sand is later shown to mirror the cracks in the road that they come across, the point being that it is man who have ruined the world and deserve to suffer for it; in the bible God floods the world, in the road, he has blown it up and completely killed it. The time they are in could just be part of God’s cycle of cleansing the world before starting afresh.

The description of the men tells us that they possibly used to be members of the government; they each wear a ‘biohazard suit’ which initially gives the impression that they are significant members of a society, a collective group who are scouring the road as a job for a purpose. Then the reader learns that the suits are ‘stained and filthy’ suggesting that their humanity is also stained and the reader realises that the men have no purpose to be cleaning up the road and the disintegration of the world has been mirrored by the corruption of their humanity. This is backed up by the way that they are carrying ‘lengths of pipe’, in our society, those wearing biohazard suits are the ones trying to stop those which weapons; the fact that they are now combined shows that there is no distinction between good and bad any more, all men are equal and all are living in an ‘every man for himself world’ even the man who seems to be trying to do everything right by his son is carrying a pistol showing that to survive, even good guys have to become murders. The men also have ‘hooded heads’ showing that they resemble the grim reaper and death in every way possible, they are very intimidating to the man and the boy who’s efforts to stay alive seem to have all been for no reason at this point. Finally, when the men are first seen, ‘the first of them were already coming into view’; the way that they are described collectively as ‘them’ shows that the man didn’t even need to stop and look to see who it was, it shows the reader that to the man and the boy, any other human being is a threat and a bad guy; there is no need for them to stop and check and have faith in people as they know almost for certain that all other people are bad. It also suggests that the man knew that they were coming; he seems to know who is bad as he has had an image of the men in his head, when he saw them he didn’t go into great detail about them, just skimmed over their general appearance to show the reader that he has possibly encountered them before and they could be the reason he has only two bullets left.

McCarthy makes a biblical reference when describing the truck as ‘lumbering and creaking like a ship’; he ties in the references to the bible in this part of the book, the fact that the man and the boy are following the birds south to be by the sea and the roadrat’s truck sounds like a ship links in with the story of Noah’s ark. God used this story to restart the world and only kept very few people alive to do so. It could be interpreted though, that this time, God is killing the world; unlike last time where he wrecked the planet, this time mankind have done it for him, so rather than giving them another chance, he is letting the bad people ride the ship and rule the place, and even though the good people try to listen to the birds, there’s never going to be a rainbow waiting for them when they get to the coast, just a thief who steals all of their belongings and turns the man into a murderer after he leaves him naked in the road. This could symbolise God giving up on humanity all together, and to justify this, he is turning all the good people into murderers in order to not feel bad about doing it.

On page 65, the roadrat is described in great detail; McCarthy does this for several reasons, he needs the reader to understand that in the post apocalyptic world, the good guys are very complex and rare beings and can’t be pinpointed to a specific description as there is no definition of a good person in this world as they are so few and far between that no one can justify one man being better than another. The bad guys however, are a common occurrence; due to the way that the reader see’s the world through an omniscient narrator, we assume that the world is how it has been described and that most of the people still alive are bad so there is a lot to be known about them. It is symbolising that, like the bible, the story is supposed to be very black and white: the good people are good and the bad people are bad. This is why the reader never has time when encountering the bad people to reflect on them as we are supposed to see them as bad and never think about their circumstances, they are the bad people and we should see them as such. Interestingly thought, the good people aren’t described as being all good; the way that the atmosphere is literally always grey, shows us that there is room for interpretation as far as the good people are concerned and that the good characters are in fact just human beings, not biblical characters.

The roadrat is particularly explicit when he talks to the man. He doesn’t seem to care who knows what about his life and what he’s doing as he has nothing to live for; if the man kills him then it may be a blessing to him. It also seems to be a statement about education; the roadrat uses simple language and swears when talking as if it is just an average thing which he says, suggesting that all forms of humanity have been removed from the world, people don’t even speak correctly anymore and the world seems to be going forwards in time, yet backwards in development. It also backs up the earlier paragraphs about the stereotypical bad guy who we know so much about because there are so many. Another reason for this use of language could be to show that the roadrat feels no threat from the man; he has friends with him and totally outnumbers the man and his two bullets so feels confident enough to be as casual in his language as he wants as he feels no harm can come from it. This is a contrast to the man whose implicit language creates a sense of mystery around his character and backs up the idea that you can’t put a mark on a good guy. If we learnt too much about the man then we would learn a definition of a supposed good guy and the point of the book would be lost. We would also then have to learn about how he really feels and cares for his son, which would again, totally dismiss the caged creation of a good man on the road.

We learn from the experience with the roadrat how educated the man is; although McCarthy never gives any details away, we learn that he knows words such as ‘frontal lobe’ and other words relating to the brain, suggesting that at some point he must have had some form of education and to quite a high level. This scene also teaches the reader, more worryingly, that the man knows how to kill. In a few seconds he manages to pull the pistol out of his belt, kneel in the correct position, aim, pull the trigger, hit the roadrat and miss his son despite the two being inches away from each other. This shows the reader that he has done it before and provides an explanation to why the wife had to leave the two of them and why the man started with so many bullets and now only has two, and after this scene, one. It shows the reader that he has had practice in killing and from this moment on, there is always a question in the reader’s mind as to whether he is actually a good guy; the biblical reference to the world being ‘gray’ is proven hear as the reader can’t work out whether the man is good or bad. He is doing his best to look after his son, but at the same time is a murderer.

‘A single round left in the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not.’ This quote from the man’s wife can be interpreted in two different ways; it can either be read as the wife getting mad at the man for not accepting the truth and being angry that he can’t face what is eventually going to happen. She is clearly terrified and the way that her husband would rather live in a state of ignorance than accept the truth frustrates her. The alternative however, is that she is begging him not to see the truth, as if he does, he will have to kill his son and then turn  the pistol on himself; if he realises the truth then he will lose all hope and spirit and his son will suffer for it. For this reason, the woman could be interpreted to be begging for her husband never to accept what has happened to the world, and to never give up.

The other men don’t chase after the man and the boy after they shoot the roadrat as they eat their friend. This shows the serious decline in humanity; people are acting like animals. The man who was once their friend and only a few hours previously was alive and looking for food with them, is now the end to their starvation. It also shows just how hungry these people are. They could have had the opportunity to gain three bodies to eat, yet they were so hungry that they didn’t have the energy to chase after the other two, just saw food and sat down to eat it like animals.

It takes the man along time after the shooting to wipe the ‘gore’ off of the boy’s face for the simple reason that it isn’t life threatening to be covered in someone’s guts. However horrific it may seem, the man kept the boy warm, he fed him and found a safe place for them to set up camp, but didn’t wash his son’s face and hair until all the essential things were taken care of as there is no point, in the apocalyptic world of worrying over anything that isn’t completely life threatening.

The Ending in 25 Words....

There’s hope for the boy; he leaves behind his father who’s kept up a state of depression and goes off with, ironically, a ‘nuclear family’. 

Handling of Time (Page 176-196)

‘When did you eat last?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You don’t remember.’

This shows the reader that there is no reason for people on the road to remember when they have eaten as they have no reason to plan meals. We only plan meals today because our day follows a set routine and we eat to keep up with this. On the road however, day and night have almost become one due to the ash and dust that falls, blocking out the sun. They have no concept of time and no reason for it so all they can really distinguish between is day and night so it is easy to imagine how a person could lose track of the days as they are all the same; as long as they are alive, they have no reason to remember when or what they eat.

‘How old are you?’

Similarly to the food, the old man is unable to truthfully recall his age as there is no reason for him to know it and no reminder of the date. Time and day are hypothetical things created by humans to gain a routine in life. However, mankind is dying out and everybody lives in the moment and has no cause to plan ahead, unless people meticulously count each day then it would be impossible to tell precisely when a year has passed and even if someone did work it out, what would be the point? It’s hardly like they’re going to celebrate.  McCarthy uses the old man as an example to show that in the novel, the reader can never be certain as to how much time has passed, as the characters have no idea either.

‘How long have you been on the road?’ ‘I’ve always been on the road.’

Once again, in this section, McCarthy uses the dialogue between two characters to make the reader question the necessity of time; the fact that the man can’t actually remember how long he has been on the road for suggests that time is insignificant. The way that the man says he has always been on the road would suggest that time is standing still for these people. McCarthy handles time simply by putting a halt to it to show that it is just another thing on the road which is dying.

‘People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.’

This quote is suggesting that for all the care we take over time, it doesn’t care about us. It is telling the reader that all the worry we have over keeping to a schedule is ridiculous because time is a made up thing and isn’t going to alter itself to suit us. All the people who worried and invested plans in the future, ironically, weren’t actually as prepared for the next day as they could have been where as those who take each day as it comes are surviving still as they had no expectations and don’t need time to rule their lives.

‘In the morning the stood in the road’

McCarthy gives the reader absolutely no idea what time in the morning they are talking about to once again highlight the lack of importance time holds for people on the road. All they have to go by is the road; they walk along it when it is light enough and sleep when it isn’t, to them it is completely irrelevant what time it is as they have no goals in life other than to get to the sea as quickly as possible with no real aim when they get there, meaning that they can take as long as they need to.

‘In the early afternoon’

McCarthy uses slightly more detail in this section. This could be because this is the first time phrase used since they left the old man alone in the road so the man and they boy are paying more attention to time as they are feeling guilty, wondering where the old man is and how long he has been left on his own for.

‘In the night he woke in the cold dark’

McCarthy uses this phrase to lead onto ‘coughing and he coughed till his chest was raw’ to fit in with the image that cold dark night quite often symbolise death, something that we know is imminent for the man but the way the author associates it with time suggests that his time is running out quickly.

‘You said it would last a few weeks’ ‘I know.’ ‘But it’s just been a few days.’

This back up the previous quote in suggesting that time is speeding up and things are going a lot quicker than the man and the boy expected them to.

‘He’d slept little in weeks.’

This shows McCarthy skipping through time to move the novel on but also showing the rapid declination of the man’s health, he gets several weeks worse in the few seconds it takes the reader to read it, to emphasize the point. 

The Little Mermaid....The Seaweed is always Greener........

When he found her she was sat on a rock amongst the sharp corals of the earths floor motionless. The lank seaweed straggling through her hair in unison with the waves which circled round like a net, isolating their world from the suns warm heart and encasing the merpeople in one cold and translucent bubble. The crab swam closer. He crossed the mass graveyard of deserted shells which littered the sea bed carelessly scattered in all directions, crumbling at a touch, dissolving into nothing.
The Mermaids face was still alabaster pale as her fathers words danced around her head like taunting ghosts. Her glare flitted briefly from the sky above to the crab and back again, resting there until a passing ship covered the gap in the rocks, finishing the seal between her and the land. The crab sat beside her.
The seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake. Ok.
Ok.
Still perched on the rock the mermaid listened as the crab pumped a heavy tune from the organ placed in the centre of the cave. His desperate attempts to glorify living under the sea became lost and buried in the ruins of the ship wreck from the night before. In a world of his own deep thoughts the crab disappeared only stopping to take breath, ranting at the mermaids contradictions. Oh Christ.  His scarlet face drained of all colour and his sudden silence shot the atmosphere dead. She was gone.
He searched for days, the trail long and never ending. Visiting the far corners of the sea bed he saw no other fish or turtle or mollusc and spent the time dodging falling fragments of casually disregarded filth sent from the shore above. When he woke in the morning from yet another restless night he walked out into the ocean and sat on a pile of rubble looking at the corroding landscape unable to see the life the ocean once held for him. At that moment he heard the mermaids voice, so distinguished yet muffled by the waters torrent. The crab put his things in his bag threw his bag over his shoulder and ran faster than he had breath enough to do so.
On coming closer, the sound getting clearer he stopped dead. Oh Christ he repeated. Oh Christ, as he followed the mermaid into the cave of the sea witch. He crept through a rock at the side of the cave and plunged into the blanket of darkness only to be greeted by the witches eels, their illuminating eyes piercing the dark haze.
Run, he whispered. But his words we lost to the Mermaid. She acknowledged him with a spiteful glance then turned her attentions back to the sea witch and carelessly bargained her voice for as if it a broken instrument. Unable to stop her, restrained by the guards the crab looked on.
The sharp air spat water in disgust at their appearance on the surface. Grainy sand. Dull clouds. Silence. What had she done?  

Theft of the Belongings........
      This section of the book is hugely significant as it see’s the man and the boy working together to find the thief of their belongings. This shows that after all the terrible things that have happened to the pair, something good has come out of it, the boy has learnt to be independent and brave. This is shown when he finds the trail of sand; as opposed to the father finding the clues and running off while the son follows, the boy is now the one making the decisions and acting on his own accord, rather than timidly standing in the background while his father runs off. Typically of the book though, this has to be ruined somehow and this happens when the two of them find the thief. Before they get to him though, pathetic fallacy is used as a foreshadowing element to the section of the book; they were in the ‘long dusk’ when they overtook the thief. In poetry and books, night time is often used as a way to symbolize death, the end of a day equating to the end of a life. In this part of the road though, it is only nearly dark which makes the reader expect a near death experience which is ultimately what happens. When they find the man he is wearing ‘stinking rags’ which represent the fact that in the world, the outside appearance is all that anyone takes into consideration; his rotting clothes resemble his rotting soul which caused him to steal the cart in the first place, the thief himself is the epitome of an apocalyptic world; rotten on the outside and on the inside and with the ability to ruin life for everyone else. What happens next could be seen to be the most sickening thing in the entire book; the reader, who has become attached to the man and his son, watches in horror as the father effectively kills an innocent man while he begs for forgiveness. Not only does he do this, he strips him physically of all his clothes, but mentally of all his dignity and treats him like an animal which until this point he has been horrified by the way people treat other people. It is at this point where the reader sees the turn of events, the boy who was before this, beginning to reassure the reader that if his father should die then he would be able to take care of himself, stands hiding behind his father crying like a baby. This section shows the reader that their hope of the boy’s independence has failed as they probably figured it would, but at the same time, the boy is still innocent, and in the apocalyptic world, this is more valuable than anything else. In a world where lives are ruined, there is an innocence within the boy that just can’t be corrupted. This is something which is so significant and powerful that it changes the man’s mind and he agrees to leave the clothes by the side of the road for the thief to find. 

Getting to Shore........

      The beginning of this section starts out as being fairly positive; the man and they boy are well fed, they have ‘new blankets and jars of canned goods’ and the language is quite positive. The problem is that, through the manipulation of McCarthy, the reader has been trained to get into the mindset of the characters and so naturally expects something to go wrong. The man admits to this feeling as the narrator tells the reader that, ‘he knew that he was placing hopes where he’d no reason to’ which shows the reader that he knows that all remotely good things must come to an end. This feeling is continued in the next paragraph as the man talks about things such as a torch that he hoped to fin batteries for....but didn’t, and, the hope that the world would get lighter....but it but gets darker, to show that there is no point in having any hope as it just ends in despair, something which he can’t afford to expose his son to. There are also a lot of links to McCarthy’s influences in this section, he mentions ‘men walking around in their graves’ which is something associated with horror stories and zombies, something which is a relevant subject of the author’s interests. The idea of zombies is also conveyed through the structure of some of the paragraphs; the methodical way by which McCarthy lists everything that he does is symbolic of the thought process of a zombie, they have no time for outside thoughts and like the man and the boy, can only focus on what they are currently doing on a very basic thought process. The final part of this section which shows the reader the terrible state they are in is ‘the grey beach’. The beach normally symbolizes a place where children go and play, build sandcastles and is quite a memorable experience, yet for the boy, his father has to apologise to him for the fact that the sea isn’t blue. This is also quite a sad moment as the reader feels the struggle for the man; he clearly sees that he is the person who is supposed to make his son’s life perfect, yet he apologises to him because the sea isn’t blue enough and shows the reader that he truly feels like the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. 

The Baby on the Spit........

      In comparison to the other key episodes, there isn’t much tension built up before the discovery of the baby; the reader knows that something significant is going to happen, the ‘smoke stood vertically in the air’ which resembles an image of hell, but unlike some of the more horrifying aspects of the book, this is portrayed as more of a dark scene which isn’t supposed to scare the reader, just more shock them into realising the man and the boy’s reality. Once again, the man and the boy are very cautious when getting closer to the danger but as per usual, the man insists on going nearer, worried for his son’s physical health, but in doing so he exposes him to a baby on a spit and wonders ‘if he’d ever speak again’, harming his mental health. This repetition of circumstances shows the reader that there is nothing that anyone can do right; if the man hadn’t taken his son towards the smell of food then he would die of starvation, yet this constant exposure to horrific things if gradually killing off his son’s spirit which is measured by the gradual disintegration of the world as it unravels and more and more things become ruined. When they do come across the baby, it is described to be ‘a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit’. This mirrors the thought that all humanity is being lost and also that all emotion is gone too. The baby isn’t described as such; it’s named ‘an infant’ to show that the characters can’t afford to feel any emotion towards it. The fact that it’s headless and gutted also shows the reader that people just see other people as animals, there is no humanity left other than people’s existence, they’re no longer living as humans, just mere beings, walking the Earth until their ultimate death. This is also shown within the section as the characters are described to be ‘pilgrims reroute to their several and collective deaths’ which shows the reader that they seem to be being conned by God; their walking on a pilgrimage to learn something about God and make some significant discovery, yet once on their mission, all they learn is that God is evil and corrupt and is making them walk straight to their deaths. After this awful incident however, the reader gets an insight into how the boy’s mind is slowly turning as pessimistic as everyone else’s as they see him run which the man tells us ‘he’d not seen in a long time’, giving the impression that, up until this point, the boy had been too depressed at some of the things he had seen, but after this incident, he got over so quickly as the element of surprise at seeing a horrible sight had disappeared and was no longer something which affected him. This sickens the reader as, not only is he completely fine at seeing a charred baby, he runs and plays and acts like a normal child would had they stumbled across any other cooked animal. It shows us that the boy, who started the book with all the innocence the world had left, has lost it all and now, like every other man or woman left walking the Earth, see’s all humans as animals and nothing more. 

Finding the People in the Cellar....

      The reader’s first impression of this section in the book is that the man and the boy are stood before what we would consider to be a haunted house; this instantly suggests that there is something, not only dangerous about the house, but also something slightly spooky and odd which acts as a foreshadowing event; as opposed to the man who had been struck by lightning or watching the baby being roasted on the spit, finding the people in the cellar is less effective in a dramatic sense as it just seems to resemble a scene out of a horror film, the bodies are limbless and the people whisper ‘help us’ to the man and the boy and come across as zombies as opposed to living human beings. This could have been the intention of McCarthy; he makes the people seem fictional to show how the desperate times have affected people’s views on the world and that they now see other humans as food with no rights, like animals. Although the start of the scene acts as a foreshadowing event for the rest of the section, it also serves as a warning to us that if anything like this were to happen to the world, we would effectively be living in a horror film. This feeling of apprehension is continued onto the next page where the two find a pile of clothes and bedding in the corner of a room which adds to the eerie feel and shows the reader that something isn’t right. After this, the boy and the man talk for a few lines and typically, in the style of a horror film, one of them insists on walking into danger; the man tells his son ‘we have no choice’ while the boy reluctantly follows and they inevitably come across something creepy and encounter danger; all of these things show how influenced by horror films McCarthy is, which makes the reader more impressed when the events of the book unravel and they realise that they haven’t anticipated anything that has happened. The next part to this section is when they actually walk down the steps into the cellar; to start with the sentences are short with a lot of commas and full stops to break up the paragraph which represents the man and the boy in the dark, wondering what they are about to come across, the fact that they can’t see is shown through the structure, yet when the man ‘held out the light’ the sentences come to life; they become longer and more complex as the man and they boy and see clearly again and, although it’s not a pleasant sight, the reader feels more relieved and this is due to McCarthy’s manipulation of how the part of the book is read as it allows the reader to see (once again) that fear of the unknown is a lot greater than fear of something you know about. The next part of this section is the point where they actually come face to face with the people in the cellar; this scene is horrific from all angles. The fact that humans have stooped to such a level is a disturbing thought for any reader; it isn’t imaginable that mankind would ever be capable of something like this, yet only a few decades ago, the holocaust was happening. The way that the people in the cellar are just left like animals and left to starve, naked and treated so badly does in a small sense resemble a concentration camp which I think McCarthy has included in order to remind the audience that, yes, his work is fiction, but although we judge and assume that it could never happen, under severe circumstances, similar things have happened. This notion makes the reader not only scared for the characters, but also for the human race as they suddenly become aware that what is being described could actually occur. The final part of this section centres around the man debating what to do in order to protect his son. Something which begins to become apparent is that his use of phrases such as ‘Oh God’ and ‘Oh Christ’; the difference in this case thought, is that he uses capital letters for ‘God’ and ‘Christ’ where as, in earlier parts of the book her doesn’t. The difference seems to be that, at this time, he knows how important it is that someone hears him and in order to do that, he knows he needs God where as in the earlier scenes, he has been in shock but never any real danger and shows the reader the hypocrisy; he has lost his faith, that much is obvious, yet when he is desperate, he still relies heavily on a God who he doesn’t care for any longer.

Shooting of the Roadrat....

      The pages 62-69 allow the reader to first encounter the people who the man and the boy are avoiding. The tension builds right from the start of this scene when ‘something woke them’; we are given no hints as to what this something could be which adds to the growing tension of the event. Also, the way that McCarthy dives straight into a new day with no use of pathetic fallacy or an insight into what the man is thinking is unusual for the reader, making them aware that trouble lies ahead. The tension continues to build when the man and the boy first see the men and their vehicles; the fact that they have vans to drive around in shows instantly that they are dangerous as in the apocalyptic world, only those who have any power, and power meaning a gun, can obtain such things. They are also fairly intimidating, the man and the boy are just two vulnerable people wandering the road, and an army of men with guns and obvious wealth of a kind do silence the atmosphere. When the roadrat comes closer to the man and the boy he takes his hood down on the request of the man; at this point the tension decreases as we now have it confirmed that the those they are afraid of are just human beings and when this is revealed, it makes the reader a lot less scared for the two characters as there is a greater fear of what they didn’t know than there was of the actual roadrat. However, before the reader can relax, the man shoots the roadrat in order to save his son’s life and they run. During this short period of time, McCarthy uses the repetition of ‘and’ to build the tension by listing things which the man does in sequences. It shows the reader that in the life they are living, there is no escape; as soon as the tension in their lives decreases, there will be something else consistently on to them, relentlessly making them scared and their lives a general misery. The next problem they face is the boy; after watching his father shoot and kill another human being, he is described to be ‘as mute as a stone’, partly due to being stunned at the whole event, but also in disbelief that his father, someone he perceives to be a ‘good guy’ can possibly do such a thing. This is once again an example of McCarthy showing that in the apocalyptic world, you can do nothing right. Hand the man not intervened, both he and his son would have physically been destroyed as the roadrat would have either shot them dead or eaten them at some point. However, by shooting the enemy, he has mentally hurt his son as he has distanced himself from him again and the boy is now questioning what the point of being alive is, if he can’t live as a good person, why bother. This equates to the killing of the roadrat being a significant event as it develops the relationship between the boy and the man, but in a negative way. In some ways this could be considered as a good thing; the man knows he is dying, ‘there was a cough in his throat that never left’, and so realises that his son, at some point, is going to have to survive without him and knows it will be easier if he doesn’t need to grieve as much, and if he knows how to survive, something he will never learn if his father shelters him from the new world. This shows the nightmare which they are living in; it is a sorry state of affairs when a father feels he must distance himself from his son to save them both. The cough that never leaves also resembles what the world is doing to them; it’s mirrored by the grey sky that never changes and the general tone of misery that won’t go away. The killing of the roadrat also stands out as a key episode as it is one of the rare events in which something major happens which has ramifications later in the novel. For so long the reader listens to McCarthy talk about the sky and the bad guys and random memories from the past, that when something like this is incorporated into the story, it is viewed as something very important as the reader is used to a dull scene, not one full of action. We are left at the end of the section wondering, will they get caught? Will they still have the same relationship? And several other questions as this part end with such uncertainty.

Coming Across a man who has been Struck by Lightening....

Coming across a man who had been struck by lightning....

      The first paragraph on page 50, tells the reader of the footprints which the man and the boy have come across along the road. Although this part is read in a calm tone, the man not appearing to be particularly bothered about their findings, a sinister atmosphere does begin to creep in as the footprints ‘just suddenly appeared’ in the tar which, for two people who know how not to be seen, could suggest to them that the person a while in front of them has no reason to hide. The explanations to this are either that they are following a bad person or, as they soon find, a dying person, with no reason to fear being caught. This poses questions for the reader though; are they going to encounter another human being? Is there a relevant danger ahead? Once again, McCarthy is bringing to light the natural fear of the unknown; the situation in which the book is set is one that probably does bring fear to the reader as an apocalyptic world is something which has no definitive proof as to whether it will ever or not happen and to read an entire book about the disaster it would be if it did occur will scare a reader or at least allow them to fear what they could lose. The author uses this a feeling to manipulate his reader into relating with the characters; although their situation is something which we personally probably won’t experience, their constant fear of the unknown is something which we can easily experience everyday and from it can connect with the man and his son which is essential if we are to ever feel empathy towards them for the things they do which could be considered heartless.
      On coming across the owner of the footprints, silence is all that fills the air; often, McCarthy describes the weather and uses pathetic fallacy to depict the mood, yet in this scene it isn’t necessary as the sorry state that they find the man in can be summed up by the description of him being ‘struck by lightning’ as this shows natures brutality to the remaining people; as if it hadn’t been cruel enough, killing off the majority of people in one blow, something from a higher power is now individually picking people off like targets. This shows the reader that the man and the boy are going to die, there is no escape, they can try to run but nature is eventually going to find them and gives the impression that there is no use of pathetic fallacy is in this chapter as nature is too cruel for words.
      The final element to this depressing sequence of events is the boy’s pleas to help the man which are completely rejected by his father and with no explanation a distance between the two begins to show. The man can see that there is no way to help the dying man as he has been struck by lightning, there is nothing they can do other than comfort him which although is no cure, shows the optional humanity that the new ‘every man for himself’ way of life has forgotten. It then becomes apparent that the man truly regrets leaving the other man to suffer and die alone as ‘he looked back up the road’ which the reader interprets as his guilt, not only to the man he left behind but also to his son who has just witnessed his worst fear, his father no longer acting as ‘a good guy’ this guilt is reflected a few sentences later when McCarthy misses out the apostrophe in ‘couldn’t’ to reflect just how he has given up; in doing right by his son and saving food for him, he has killed another part of the boy’s spirit, he can do nothing right so what is the point in caring? His feeling of self disgust is continued later when he decides to effectively disown himself by leaving all things which are a part of his identity behind. He does this to relieve himself of the responsibility of being a good guy as no matter how good he tries to be, he can’t get it right. In leaving behind his identity, his wedding photos and a drivers license, he is leaving behind his past in terms of a wife, and who he was, the only part of him which is still on his person, is the boy. This shows that, although it began as depression, he has found a new hope to live off as he can now forget himself and focus entirely on his son. This is significant as it tells the reader that although the boy perceives there to be a void growing between him and his father, this is actually what the man wants; the boy can go on without the fantastic father and son relationship he could have experienced under normal circumstances, while at the same time, the man can dedicate himself to subtly being as dedicated to his son as possible, by forgetting himself.

Part One Questions

It is essential you recognise Cormac McCarthy's crafting of sentences in "The Road". Read the following extract out loud, pay attention to the sounds of the words and the rhythm of the writing.

This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job.

The man sounds in this quote as though he has simply resigned himself to the fact that nothing is going to get any better; when people say the word ‘job’ it is associated with hard work and a lack of interest, something that people distance themselves from and forget when they go home to enjoy family life. The opposite of this is when people talk about their family, when the man says ‘my child’ the reader imagines a happy father and son which is why when the two are put in the same sentence the reader wonders why the father associates work with his son. It could be that he feels like he needs to keep a professional type of relationship between them as there is no guarantee that either will make it through the next day and if he dies, it will hurt his son less if he feels no connection to his father. By referring to it as a job, it makes the man feel like he has a reason to keep going; at the end of a day’s work, people are rewarded with money which gives them something to work towards, for the man, he is working towards a time when his son can go to sleep like any other child and he can pretend for a few hours that their life is normal. He appears to have become immune to the fact that he has to undergo some horrific tasks in order to accomplish this and if washing brains out of his boy’s hair is necessary to watch him sleep peacefully at night, he’ll do it in order to keep his spirits up. He could also refer to the task of looking after the boy as a ‘job’ because he doesn’t really want to do it. He can’t bear the thought of killing his son, yet he knows that if he didn’t have a child, he could quite happily kill himself and end his suffering.

Yes I am, he said. I am the one.

In being ‘the one’ the man is saying that there is no one else who can do his job; in an emotional sense, he is the child’s father and no one else should do his job but in a literal sense, there is no one else. They are dying, so is everybody else on the planet, if he isn’t the one then who is and where are they? He seems to be talking to God in a way, as if some higher power has selected him for the job. The man seems to question God’s judgement, the reader can imagine him looking up towards the sky and sarcastically saying ‘Yes, I am the one’ as if to say, why me? Of all people, why did God find it necessary to choose him to take on such a demanding job in such a hard time, why couldn’t he have just died and let someone else take on the role? He comes across as being reluctant to take on the role but knows that for his son’s sake he must do so, he is the chosen one whether he likes it or not.

Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef.

At first, this quote sounds like it has spoken very quickly in total astonishment as to what they have come across, all these natural, beautiful fruits that can give them life and restore some of their spirit all laid out before them....in grey metal tins. The tins seem to represent the apocalyptic world, they are dull and grey and trap people from finding the goodness inside of themselves. Ironically when they do fine the goodness, it will do no more than prolong their suffering; the boy can’t get too attached to his father as if he does, when his father dies he will suffer for longer and because of this, he can’t access the fantastic relationship they could have enjoyed together. This is mirrored by the tins of food; although their contents will, in the short term, prevent their suffering, in the long term it will lengthen it. They were both so close to starvation, all they would have had to endure was a few more days and they’d be free, yet now they have found this fruit, they are just going to end up back where they started and the dull tin can acts as a reminder that what is inside, although looks sweet, is actually poison.

Are we still the good guys, he said.

The boy shows his innocence in this part of the book; he can see the effects that the world is having on his father and seems worried that his father is starting to become corrupted. By asking the man this he is questioning what they have done but is also desperately trying to confirm that his father is still a good man and not changing as he needs to know and be reassured that he is alive for a reason and that he must live to preserve the good guys. He could also be saying this to remind his father of the fact that there is a purpose for them to be alive and that he needs him to realise what it is as if he doesn’t, what is the point in them being alive, if they’re not the good guys then they are helping to corrupt an already dying world so there is little point in them living and the realisation of this for the child could prove to be too much for the young child to take on board.

We should go, Papa, he said. Yes, the man said. But he didn't.

In this part of the book, the reader see’s the man lose all enthusiasm for everything, including his son. The two characters effectively swap roles; the boy tries to have some authority over his father, while the man does the opposite of what he knows is best for he and his son, like a typical child would do for no other reason than to be stubborn. The reader worried about the man, he seems to welcome danger in some ways; he knows he ‘should go’ as the boy says, but his state of depression leads him to not care, he’s so miserable within himself that he can’t see the point in doing anything and questions, is there any point in trying to live? We all die some day and most events in life are miserable; although his son represents the creation of a new life, he also represents an eventual death and in this mindset, the man just can’t see the point in doing anything. Although this scene centres on the man’s misery, it also shows the spirit of the boy. He knows nothing other than this miserable world he has been brought into and because of this, doesn’t realise what he has missed out on so has nothing to look back on meaning that all he can do is look forward. This is why he wants to keep going down the road as for him, there could be a better situation but the man knows that nothing he finds will compare to his past so there is no point trying to move forward but at the same time he can’t go back to the past so he is stuck in limbo; although he is still in death’s waiting room, he is in hell and any form of death will seem like heaven so he’s stuck between the two.

The snow fell nor did it cease to fall.

The snow falling represents how everything positive in the old world can very easily be given a negative twist in the new version. When the man was a child, a snowfall meant a day off school and a chance to play, now when the snowfalls for the boy, it’s likely to kill him. Not only this but the snow used to be a fun element to winter that was so special as it only happened for a short time each year where as now, it is persistent, there is no let up and the fun has been ruined. This part of the book also represents the mundane lives they lead, the snow fell and they kept walking, the snow continued to fall and they still kept walking, they see no joy in its beauty or fun in its existence as they know that it will continue to fall regardless of their emotions and they have learnt from experience that the more they get attached to something, the harder it will be when it disappears which it inevitably will, not because its snow and it will melt but because it’s something that they could be happy about so naturally it will be taken away from them.

Okay? Okay.

In this dialogue between the man and the boy there is a clear lack of emotion. It seems like this is down to how scared the boy is of upsetting his father. He must be aware that without the man, he stands no chance of surviving and he seems quite resigned to the fact that his father is depressed so aiming for a conversation is ultimately pointless and is more likely to upset either one or both of them. It also conveys the feeling that they are more like two strangers than a family; neither are connected to the other yet they rely so heavily on each other to keep themselves as happy as is possible under the circumstances.

They sat on the edge of the tub and pulled their shoes on and then he handed the boy the pan and soap and he took the stove and the little bottle of gas and the pistol and wrapped in their blankets and they went back across the yard to the bunker.

In this sentence, there is no description whatsoever; it shows the reader that their lives consist of nothing put routine and even at a time when they do something remotely different to normal, they still do it in a habitual way; they both seem to know what has to be done and they both get on with it without any fuss, excitement or remote enjoyment. It also shows that there is no connection between the two characters as once again, neither spoke to the other. The sentence gives the impression that the two of them are in a normal setting; they are having a bath and then walking across their yard, the only thing that changes this perception is the pistol which sends the reader back to reality and shows that they’re not enjoying a happy moment, they are still in the same, miserable situation.

 Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth.

They appear to be sat in silence at this part in the book with nothing to do but watch the world go by. The earth, as we know it, is always noisy and there are very few places where absolute silence occurs, yet in the apocalyptic state, silence is just an average part of life. It again, highlights the lack of emotion and connection that the two characters have towards each other as they have a void between them preventing them from having a normal conversation. In some ways this must be nice as they time to think and reflect on their lives but this is possibly a bad thing as it allows the man to keep living in the past and not move on and it also will make the boy feel unloved and not good enough as his father never holds a proper conversation with him, he never smiles and although he loves him, the only time we see this during the book is when something terrible happens and the man gets brought back to reality and sees his son is the future and in order to protect him, he must stop dwelling on the past as the ‘silent minutes of the earth’ are passing by and meaning nothing.

She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift. 

When talking about the boy’s mother, the narrator shows a contrasting opinion of her, she left them to fend for themselves which was ‘coldness’ yet at the same time this was her ‘gift’ to them. It shows her to be selfish, for leaving them in the first place and thinking more of herself than of her child. However, a mother’s attachment to her child is very strong and leaving him as well as the man she loved must have been the hardest decision of her life and it could have been considered a gift as, if she had stayed, she would have formed a relationship with her son which no matter how great it was, would have hurt him more when she did eventually die. Also, from the man’s point of view, he would never have known what happened to her which may have been a blessing; if he had watched his wife die a horrible torturous death, he would never have recovered from it and given up completely which would have hurt the boy a lot more as he would have had memories and feelings for her and his father. It would also have been a final gift to the man as she would have been a permanent reminder of the past; not only would have seen the past in his memories, she would have been there to remind him of the person he used to be. Also, in leaving in such a cruel way, it gives the man a reason to hate her, where as if she had died while with the man and she had done everything possible to stay alive, he’d have no reason to do anything but love her which would have totally destroyed him.