The Road By Cormac McCarthy Lit Analysis
General
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The story is set in post-apocalyptic America. It’s
about a father and son living in the tough times. They travel along the “State
Roads” and try to survive. The father try’s to raise his son as best he can to
be a good person and not conform to the times they live in. After reaching the
coast the father dies and the son goes to live with a new family that he meets.
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The theme would be that light defeats darkness,
and about the bond between father and son. The father tells that they are the
good guys and “carry the fire”. When bad things happen the father ensures the
son that they are the good guys. Also he try’s to teach him to be good. Their
bond is shown in the scene where he teaches him to swim.
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The tone is bleak and minimalistic. The bleak
tone of the words helps set the mood for how they are living and the
minimalistic of the writing causes you to understand how little there is.
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Simile:
“the shape of a city stood
in the grayness like a charcoal drawingsketched across the waste.” (page
4) Flashback: “Always so deliberate, hardly surprised by the most
outlandish advents. A creation perfectly evolved to meet its own end. They sat
at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight a midnight supper and
watched distant cities burn. A few nights later she gave birth in their bed by
the light of a drycell lamp. Gloves meant for dishwashing. The improbable
appearance of the small crown of the head. Streaked with blood and lank black
hair. The rank meconium. Her cries meant nothing to him. Beyond the window just
the gathering cold, the fires on the horizon. He held aloft the scrawny red
body so raw and naked and cut the cord with kitchen shears and wrapped his son
in a towel.” (Page 30) Metaphor: “To hear it you will need a frontal
lobe and things with names like colliculus and temporal gyrus and you wont have
them anymore. They'll just be soup.” (Page 33) Foreshadowing: “A single round left in
the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not.” Foil: The boy and father foil each other. In the sense that the
father wants to protect the boy and love him. The fact that the boy is still
learning from the dad and needs protection just highlights the differences
between them and their relationship. Imagery: “The dead came to light lying
on their sides with their legs drawn up and some lay on their stomachs. The
dull green antique coppers spilled from out the tills of their eyesockets onto
the stained and rotted coffin floors.” (page 111)
Setting: “Out there was the
gray beach with the slow combers rolling dull and leaden and the distant sound
of it. Like the desolation of some alien sea breaking on the shores of a world
unheard of. Out on the tidal flats lay a tanker half careened. Beyond that the
ocean vast and cold and shifting heavily like a slowly heaving vat of slag and
then the gray squall line of ash.”(P. 112) Motif:
“You cant. You have to carry the fire./ I dont know how to. /Yes you do. /Is it
real? The fire?/ Yes it is./ Where is it? I dont know where it is./ Yes you do.
It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.” (Page 145) The slashes
represent a new line. Do to formatting I couldn’t make a new line.
Syntax: “He'd come down with
a fever and they lay in the woods like fugitives. Nowhere to build a fire.
Nowhere safe. The boy sat in the leaves watching him. His eyes brimming. Are
you going to die, Papa? he said. Are you going to die?” (page 97) Diction: “In dreams his pale bride came
to him out of a green and leafy canopy. Her nipples pipeclayed and her rib
bones painted white. She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up
in combs of ivory, combs of shell. Her smile, her downturned eyes. In the
morning it was snowing again. Beads of small gray ice strung along the light-wires
overhead.” (Page 9)
Characterization
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You
can see indirect characterization throughout the book. When he and his son talk
about carrying the fire for instance. It shows how they want to remain good and
never give up. Another instance is how the father pays attention to the
ammunition. He has managed to save two bullets, one for himself and one for his
son should the time come. When he’s
forced to use a bullet to protect his son he knows that the last one will be
for his son alone, should the highly possible time arise, when there is
something worse than death. Direct characterization occurs when the author
describes the son and father.
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The
syntax and diction doesn’t change. McCarthy keeps a minimalistic writing style
throughout to indicate the sparseness and bleakness of the tale.
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The
protagonist is dynamic and round. He is complex, and is often specifically
shown to be. Like when he kills people in front of his son. He tells him they
lived or that they are still the good guys. He continues to try to teach his
son to be a better person then the dire situation they are in made him. He also
develops over the book. How he feels about his wife and what happen affect him
and challenge him.
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I
felt like a read a character, or more specifically watched a character. The
writing style didn’t feel personal. It’s not supposed to be personal, because
it’s an impersonal world. What I got was that I saw the characters go through
what happened to them. There was nothing to personal or descriptive that leads
me to believe that I had a deep personal understanding of them. This of course
is intentional I feel, and not a case a bad writing. I don’t think you need to
feel like you met a character to necessarily get the story. Sometimes it’s
better when it’s left to mystery.
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