The Importance of the Road in the Novel

• It can be assumed, regardless of the country in which the novel is set, that there is not just a single road stretching as far a distance as the characters travel. Yet it is always referred to in the singular form never the plural. Therefore, the road can be seen as a metaphor for the characters' personal choices. They could take the common path- the one taken by the 'bad guys'- which leads to the breakdown of humanity, but they take the less travelled route on which they are in less danger of forgetting who they are. Their chosen path is clearly harder since they are in a constant battle to survive without losing their humanity but the fact that they continue on it despite the novel's many hurdles shows the optimistic, determined personalities of the man and boy. At several points in the novel they consult a map and this could be at moments when they are questioning their direction yet these episodes are soon overcome and when they are actually walking they do not look at a map because they know which route they have chosen. Therefore, the road is a symbol of hope because it shows that, despite the collapse of civilisation, people still have choice. Furthermore, the man guides the son along the road, regularly telling him that 'we're carrying the fire' which creates the idea that if one person chooses the right path then others will follow. So in a way, the man's death is irrelevant because he has already shown the boy the way and the boy will carry on this path teaching others as the 'breath of God.'

• The abandoning of the shopping cart on the road symbolises the abandonment of consumerism and the back to basics still approach that the man and boy have to adopt in order to survive.

• Roads rarely come to a complete stop and leave the traveller in the middle of nowhere with no other destination therefore the focus on a road implies that neither will humanity or the Earth.

The ending in 25 words

Optimistic- older than man fish suggest a natural cycle of life/death- something new will come after man- everything has it's time to live/die

Statements to agree with:

'Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more emotionally engaging.'
The simplicity of McCarthy's language reflects the simplicity of the world in which the characters live; an unknown force has destroyed civilisation as the reader knows it and the goal is now simply to survive, not live. The minimilistic dialogue and description shows the characters' disconnection to the world, especially in the case of the man who has experienced civilisation and is now witnessing a 'cold glaucoma dimming away the world', which could mean he's now seeing the world in a different light and is watching the last remains of his past life disappear. There is simply nothing for the characters to project their emotion at, so the avoidance of emotional language reflects their existances which are devoid of feelings. Initially the simplistic language makes the reader feel disconnected to the novel since there are no dramatic climaxes to hold their attention and have them feeling empathy towards the characters, who are not even given names. However, this sense of dettachment creates a link between the characters and reader since the feelings of disconnection whilst reading the novel link in with the characters feeling disconnected from their world. Therefore, the reader is experiencing similar feelings to the characters so he/she is engaging with the narrative and understanding the charatcers' reactions to events much more than if the language was over dramatic and full of unnecessary emotion.
 If McCarthy had used strong, emotional language, the effect of making the reader empathise with the characters' dire situation would have been ruined because by keeping the language as simplistic as possible, the reader is granted a greater insight into their lives than if McCarthy had used hyperbolic language full of emotion;  then he would almost be lying to the reader since the characters' numbness and apathy towards the world would not be portrayed effectively. One example is during the wife's suicide. There are no desperate pleas from her husband and she does not even say goodbye to her son; 'the coldness of it was her final gift' and that sentence makes the scene significantly more emotionally engaging than if the man had shown his true feelings. It shows the reader that the characters actually want to be as cut off from emotion as possible and ironically this makes the reader engage with the narrative because it's inconcievable to the typical reader  why a man would not stop his wife killing herself and then why their only child would simply ask 'she's gone isn't she?' At this point in the novel, the reader feels imense pity for the characters, despite them not being able to experience this emotion themselves.

Passage of Time

Pages 197-217
References to the passage of the day:

• 'Early the day following'

Markers in the year:

• 'Three days. Four.'

Passages in which narrative time is telescoped:

• 'The following day'

Points at which narrative time expands:

• P.g. 197- 'When three men stepped from behind a truck'- time expands because there is suddenly a lot more detail than the narrator usually gives; this is because it's a tense, potentially dangerous situation but also could be because it's a break from their monotonous daily lives, so every moment is taken in.

References to before:

• P.g. 199- The man dreams of the past in which he visited a half destoyed library.

Points at which time is suspended:

• During the mans dreams on p.g. 199.

Abstract references to time:

• 'They had not gone far'- The novel's characters use distance instead of time as a way to measure their progress, since time is now meaningless but their journey is vital to their survival.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

She left in the night. The cold door slammed closed behind her. Bang. Echo. Snow fell, attached itself to the landscape. She went on walking. The temperature dropped. She discarded her bag, the contents were too heavy. The road wound on far ahead. She passed nothingness. The path lasted for four miles. When it ended she turned off into the forest. Snow collapsed from tree branches soaking her with icy water. The temperature lowered again.
An unknown time later a lone house appeared. She approached it. Slowly. Weeds tangled through the bricks, a winged creature escaped from a gap in the roof. She held back. Then gently pushed the door. It creaked open loudly but there was nothing to hear it. She entered and glanced around hurriedly. Empty. Room by room she explored. Still devoid of life. The odd piece of crockery or material were scattered around. She picked them up.
A raised voice made her turn round. The items tumbled to the floor once more. Seven men. Short, ugly, mean. Angry. Multiple shouts. Unwilling agreements, more arguments, accusations. Finally she was allowed to stay decided to clear leader. It a poor choice but her only one. Fine, she'd stay.
Days rolled into weeks. No distractions from life, her time now spent tending the home of the odd little creatures. Vague recollections of her old life flashed through her mind. Wealth. Feasting. Dancing. But also cruelty, misery, isolation. Her.
The weather grew harsher. Winds howled, rains pelted and snow fell. Food became scarce as did company. She could not recall the last time she'd seen another living soul. Expect the seven little men.
Days, months or years later there was a knock. A bang on the door. She edged towards it. Hesitant but hopeful. A figure encased in black robes stood outside. She recoiled at the sight of the stranger. Lank, thining hair. Beady eyes that squinted despite the gloom. Hands gnarled as tree roots. A smile. Something tumbled from the folds of the stranger's cloak. Something green. Circular. Shiny. An apple. She reached for it, gripped it in her palm. The temptation was immense. She took a bite, grinned at the taste. She felt herself sway slightly. The apple was dropped. Rolled into a puddle of rainwater. She gripped teh doorframe. Sharp panic bit at her. She sensed herself falling. Her fingers felt the Earth. Blackness. There was no more.

Key Episodes

Coming across the man who has been struck by lightning

• In this episode the man and boy come across a man close to death who has apparently been struck by lightning. Despite the boys' protests, the man refuses to help the stranger and they walk on past him without a word.
• This episode does show glimpses of humanity whereas before it had simply been a desperate struggle for survival with no thought paid to anything else. But the apperance of 'a set of tracks cooked into the tar' implies that humanity can never be completely removed since evidence of it has been permently encassed in the road. By including this, McCarthy is suggesting that humanity will always be there even if civilisation is not, and terrible deeds can be done (such as the ones later in the novel) yet what makes a human a human is ever present. This links in to the boy later begging his father to try and save the stranger; the boy still has his humanity despite the harshness of the life he is forced to lead which suggests that even in the most bleakest of situations, a person is still capable of goodness. It could be argued that the father refusing to help the stranger contradicts this but perhaps the reason he refuses is because the focus has to be on protecting his son- and surely that is one of the most important aspects of humanity?
• In a way the stranger represents the country because he appears near death and beyond help, just as the burned and ravaged scenery seems. Yet the boy wants to help the man, and although his father doesn't let him, it does provide a sense of hope that if people wanted to help each other then slowly civilisation could be rebuilt. However, on the other hand, when the man and boy look back they see that 'the burned man had fallen over and at that distance you couldn't even tell what it was.' This quotation destroys any budding hope because it links in to the country being unrecognisable from the thriving place it used to be.
• This episode is important because it starts the gradual process of the boy becoming numb to his surroundings and the awful events he will come to witness. When they left the stranger and walked on the boy 'didn't look back again', so he's learning that some things are out of his control and that he must overcome his emotions if he wants to survive. In a way he eventually becomes better at this than his father because the latter remembers life before the disaster whereas the son has no recollection of this and life on the road is all he knows. Furthermore, the quotation, 'he didn't look back' symbolises the boy moving on from his sentiments and no longer acknowledging them since he is beginning to learn that if he wants to survive then he has to leave them behind. Therefore, it could be said that the abandoning of the stranger is a metaphor for the boy starting to leave behind his emotions.

Shooting the 'roadrat'

• In this episode, the man and boy see a truck and a group of men pass by them, so they hide in the undergrowth but one of the men stumbles across them. The man eventually shoots the stranger after he holds a knife to the boy's throat.
• This is the next key episode after the one with the lightning struck man because it shows the next progression in the boy becoming emotionally numb. In this instance he finds himself covered in the blood of a man his father has just shot yet he is 'mute as stone.' The use of the word 'stone' is appropriate since that is what the boy is turning into emotions wise. In this case he's only temporarily like this because then his father grabs him and they flee the scene but when the father is killed at the end of the novel, he is not there to break his son's emotionaless trances, so this implies that the boy will eventually become completely cold and unpenetrable. It ironic that this may help him survive because there's the danger he could become as cold hearted as the cannibals who stalk the roads looking for prey.
• There is some foreshadowing in this section of the book because the boy is playing with a toy truck and then a large one arrives. The contrast is that the small one is a child's toy associated with fun and happiness yet the real truck signals danger; this emphsises the boy's lack of a normal childhood.
• There's an increase in tension when the man points the gun at the stranger and this increase is shown throught the rapid, contionous dialogue. In most other parts of the novel, the dialogue is limited and the reader learns little detail from it yet in this situation it provides the reader with various pieces of information. The strained dialogue ressumes once the stranger is dead which suggests the man finds it easier to communicate with a man holding a knife to his son's throat rather than the son himself. There may be several reasons for this, one being it's likely that the father would feel a sense of guilty for the life that his young son is having to lead. Perhaps in an odd way, the man partly relished talking to a stranger because it's a link to a lost world that his son wasn't part of but that the stranger probably was; the man asking about a supposedly everyday thing like a diseal engine shows a desire for the mundane but normal life that has now been lost.
• The stranger's tatoo also highlights the bleakness of the world they now occupy, since it's a bird but one which was done by 'someone with an illformed notion of their appearance.' While this may simply mean it was done by a poorly skilled tatoo artist, it could also be interpreted to mean that there are no birds left and that they have either died out or escaped somewhere else and this give the reader a hint about how large scale the unknown disaster that wiped out civilisation was. Furthermore, birds are a symbol of freedom and the abscence of them implies that the people still alive are trapped in that country and it makes the reader wonder if there is any hope for the man and boy and if they will ever reach the coast.

Finding the cellar of naked and mutilated people

• In this section of the novel, the characters come across a cellar full of people who are probably being kept there as a food source. One man has had his legs removed. This episode clearly defines the novel as part of the horror genre and for the first time it shows the depths to which people are willing to sink. Furthermore, this episode teaches the reader a lesson in humanity since the people who've kidnapped and locked up others were probably just ordianry people before the destruction of civilisation. It makes the reader wonder what they would do in that situation; everyone would like to think we'd stop and help the prisoners but would we really? So while the reader struggles to connect to the novel on an emotional level, it does pose unanswerable questions.
• There is initially a sense of confusion as the scene the characters are viewing is revealed to the reader bit by bit, which reflects the man's confusion at what the world he used to know has descended into and the boy's confusion about is this all there is to life since he was born after civilisation was destroyed.
• There is also a build up of tension, one of the only examples of this in the novel, which tricks the reader into assuming something will happen. Yet although we experience the shock of finding out that people are being kept in a cellar as a food source, the novel ressumes it's slow, monotonous pace. Although this detaches the reader from the story it is appropriate because it represents the characters' monotonous lives; sometimes they have a glimpse of hope yet it is quickly dashed and they ressume their fight for survival. The reader does not connect with the characters because there is nothing to connect with; they have lost their emotions and don't experience strong feelings themselves, so why should the reader?
• There are some examples of language whilst they are discovering the people in the cellar which shows how bleak the situation is. For example, the smell is refered to as an 'ungodly stench' and the man whispers 'Jesus.' The choice of words which are associated with religion is ironic since religion is a concept of hope and there is little of that in the novel, let alone in this episode. Furthermore, if the man was religious before the destruction of civilisation, then it seems his God has abandoned him, yet he still whispers the name Jesus, who was a symbol of love and hope, which suggests the man is still clinging on to aspects of his past life and may believe that things have to improve. Yet the fact that he whispers the word suggests he thinks he's being foolish and doesn't want to admit to a hope that someone will save him- he realises he's alone but doesn't want to admit it.
• The structure of this episode reflects the man and boy's movements. For example, as they descend the staircase, the sentences are short to represent them moving one step at a time and seeing more things as they go. They finally see everything when the man turns on the light and illuminates the horrific scene before them but in a wider sense he has just illuminated the horror of the entire novel for this event shows that a line has been crossed and that some people's humanity has completely snapped. Therefore it's ironic that by turning the light on and making the room brighter he simultaneously reveals the novel to be a lot darker than initially thought.

The baby on the spit

• In this episode, the man and boy find a baby being roasted on a fire for food, although the perpertrators have fled. Initially they both seem to feel shocked but they quickly continue walking.
• While reading this episode, I didn't feel a particularly emotional response to the events, apart from an obvious feeling of disgust. I think this was because the novel itself is so detached, so the reader doesn't feel a connection with the characters. There is little detail and emotion in the text, usually just the bare facts are given which links in to the bareness of the man and boy's lives and that they've had to block out their emotions otherwise they'd be compelte wrecks and would have little chance of survival. Therefore, the reader fails to connect with them but perhaps that was McCarthy's intention and he wanted the reader to feel as lost and unmoved as the characters themselves are. If so, then it could be argued that the reader does connect with the novel, but the style of writing makes the reader feel in a similar state as the charatcers.
• The baby on the spit shows how everyone from infants to the elderly have been affected by an unknown disaster and how no one can escape the aftermath. The scene makes the man and boy's journey seem hopeless because they appear to be running from something that is unescapable and is consuming everyone and everything. Furthermore, it shows the horrific depths that some people are willing to sink to in order to survive and it could imply that the man and boy may one day fall to these levels themselves. Everyone must have started out optimistic that they would survive but found it impossible to do so without commiting such atrosticies. Therefore this episode also poses several question about whether survival is worth it if the person becomes evil in order to achieve it?
• Before they see the baby, the boy is worried that 'it could be a trap' and although it isn't a literal trap, it is a metaphorical one because the next thing they see will be imprinted in their memories forever and it's unlikely they'll ever be able to completely forget what they are about to see.

Getting to the shore

• In this episode, the man and boy find a disgarded wheelbarrow to carry their things and then eventually find the coast, although the boy is disappointed that the sea is not blue.
• When the man wakes up at night coughing, he feels like 'a man waking in a grave' which can be interpretated in more than one way. On one hand, the word 'grave' may symbolise the world which they live in since it is home to the dead, meaning the countless people who died in the unknown disaster, and the threat of their own deaths is always hanging over the man and boy.

Quotations

Quotations - expectations

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- this quotation suggests that the novel falls into the horror genre because of the grim subject matter. Yet it also hints that relationships between parent and child feature heavily in the novel; it's obvious that this one is strong because of what the father is willing to do for the son. The quote is also slightly ironic since in a normal society, a man who put his son in the situation of having brains in his hair would be considered a bad parent. Yet in this post apocalyptic world, the quote shows that morals and reasoning have changed. The quote also suggests that more tests of their relationship will soon follow, which leaves the reader wondering how worse the situation could get. It's also clear that death and suffering are key themes in the novel and it leaves the reader wondering what kind of society the novel is set in if things such as this occur.


Yes I am, he said. I am the one- this suggests a uniqueness about the speaker although just from this quote the reader can't put it into context and work out it's meaning. However, the quote definitely implies that the speaker- whether it's the man or son- is special for whatever reason. If this was read as part of the novel, it implies that the man is the only one in his position and everyone else has fell to inhumanity yet this one man is determined to get himself and his son away from the danger; the man is the only one who has not given up.

Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef- The quick pace of this list of foods shows the excitement of the man describing them; clearly he hasn't eaten for a while or not eaten a proper amount, and the fact that there are no non food related words in the sentence shows that food- the key to survival- has become the centre of their worlds. The foods described are quite basic which shows that they have sunk to the lowest level of life and are barely surviving. Yet the fact that the man can seem to muster excitement over these basic foods shows that he still has his determination and his desire to live and this is the thing which keeps him alive- not the small food supplies.  


Are we still the good guys, he said- This quote shows doubt about the man and son's position and whether they have compromised their morals in order to survive. It implies that so far they have been 'the good guys' but factors not under their control seem to be trying to change this. The fact that whatever has happened is not mentioned in detail and that this sentence is minimal represents the lack of detail in their lives- all focus is on survival and there is no time for anything else.

The snow fell nor did it cease to fall.- This quote shows how exposed the characters are to the elements and how they have little control over their own fate. Furthermore, snow is cold and harsh and this is exactly what the characters' lives are like. So in a way the snow continuing to fall represents the constant metaphorical cold that is always falling on the man and boy.


Okay? Okay.- the lack of emotion in the quote makes the reader feel detached from the characters; because the characters themselves don't show emotion, the reader struggles to empathise with them.


They sat on the edge of the tub and pulled their shoes on and them 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.- the monotonous way in which this is described reflects the monotonous lives of the man and boy. Only the most basic description is included in this sentence which shows the lack of events to describe. Furthermore, the lack of punctuation means the sentence can be read quickly and this suggests that because their lives are so event less, when even menial things happen it's quite significant.  


Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth.- this quote shows that time has become meaningless in the world which the characters live in. It's 'tolling in silence' because there is hardly anyone to hear it and there is no reason for it to be known; people's existence is based on survival and time is no longer measured as it was before. This quote really sets out the tone of the novel and shows that it is set in a post apocalyptic world.


She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift. - for the last time, the man felt emotion and he felt so strongly about his wife's suicide that it's made him numb; this is actually a gift in disguise because his situation is so bleak that perhaps it's better not to feel. The suggests that emotion does not play a key role in the novel and it literally just about the man and son's survival.


What does these extracts tells us about;


- the type of novel it might be (the genre/s it seems to draw on or fit with)
- the story (what might happen)
- themes (the ideas it might raise)
- characters and relationships
- the way the story might be told.