The Road by Cormac McCarthy
1.
The novel is about a father and his son walking across
post-apocalyptic North America. It is the
middle of winter and it is always cold. The son is about 6 years old but has
the maturity level of a thirty year old man. He asks questions that require
deep thought to answer and most of the time he never gets his answers. His
father only replies with “I don’t know.” They are walking across the land to
hopefully get to the coast where they can be “safe.” While they are walking
they have to hide from cannibals that roam around in their large diesel trucks.
The only form of protection they have is a little pistol and they have very
little food. At night, while the boy sleeps, the
father reflects on his past. He remembers his wife and how she left them. He
thinks back to his childhood when the world wasn’t covered in ash and the sky
was blue instead of grey. The story ends with the father’s
death and the boy moving on with another family.
2. The
theme is responsibility and dependency. The man is 100% responsible for his
son. If they had lived a normal life, he would still be responsible for him,
but in this new strange world, he has to make sure that he is always warm and healthy
(as possible) and fed and safe from strangers. The boy is dependent on his
father because he has no clue where they are going. He has to trust that his
father will keep him safe and fed. He trusts his father, even though his father
is barely able to keep him alive.
3. The
author’s tone is removed. It seems as if he is narrating a documentary rather
than telling a story.
“ He went to see about the boy. He
was damp with sweat and the man pulled back one of the blankets and fanned his
face and then turned down the heater and went back to bed.”
“Nobody wants to be here and nobody
wants to leave.”
“Houses or barns or under the bank
of a road-side ditch with blankets pulled over their heads and the noon sky
black as the cellars of hell.”
4. Characterization- the author
uses indirect characterization throughout the entire novel. “Just wait here. He
said. I’m going with you. I thought you were scared. I am scared. Okay, just
stay close behind me.”
Conflict- the world is covered in grey ash and there are few signs
of life and it’s the middle of winter. “He just say there holding the
binoculars and watching the ashen daylight congeal over the land.”
Flashback- the father often flashes back to times when his wife was
still with them. “I don’t care. It’s meaningless. You can think of me as a
faithless slut if you like. I’ve taken a new lover. He can give me what you
cannot.” “Death is not a lover.” “Oh yes he is.”
Mood- the mood is of darkness and sorrow with not much hope. “We
used to talk about death, but not anymore. Why is that?” “I don’t know” “It’s
because it’s here. There’s nothing left to talk about.”
Motif- the road. “He fashioned sweeps from two old brooms he’d
found and wired them to the cart to clear the limbs from the road…”
Paradox- the man tells his son of how life used to be. It is hard
to imagine for the boy because he never witnessed it. “It’s a dam… It made the
lake. Before they built the dam, that was just a river down there. The dam used
the water than ran through it to turn big fans called turbines that would
generate electricity… To make lights.”
Characterization
1. The
author doesn’t use any direct characterization. Two examples of indirect
characterization are “Just wait here. He said. I’m going with you. I thought
you were scared. I am scared. Okay, just stay close behind me.” This shows that
the boy is scared like he should be, but he is brave. “You wanted to know what he
bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care
of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.
Do you understand?” This example shows that the man can be impatient and lose
his temper with the boy. But it also shows that he is very protective and
religious.
2. The
author is very static when he changes from character to character. The way he
tells the story is very dry and stoic.
3. The main character, the man, is static and
flat. His morals never change and his goal never changes. He always wants to do
what’s best for the boy and get him to safety. His main goal in the novel is to
get to the coast unharmed. They succeed but they don’t find what they had been
looking for. This discourages the man but he keeps on walking to find a place
where his boy can finally be safe.
4. I feel
like I have read a character. There is no way for my mind to grasp the
situation that the boy and his father are in. I can’t even picture the world
that McCarthy describes
