Comarc McCarthy´s The Road Analysis

The Road, a story of the nameless father and son “survivors” (55) in a world of nothingness, is told in such a distinctive way that their bond and true exertions to survive are relayed effortlessly to readers without even noticing. After an abrupt, unexplained end of the world, the father and son are two of very few survivors left on Earth. Their struggle is evident through cannibalistic encounters, the suicide of the man’s wife and the boy’s mother, and the sole battle between life and death in a world covered in ash. In this post-apocalyptic novel, Cormac McCarthy uses unique techniques in dialogue, apocalyptic imagery, and punctuation to represent the setting of the story, embodying the relationship between the father and son fighting against impossible odds.

To begin with, McCarthy uses dialogue between the characters to linguistically illustrate their inseparable bond. Through conversations between the father and his wife, the father’s persistence to keep striving to stay alive while his wife is not is made clear. While the father claims that they are “survivors” (55), his wife debates that they are the “walking dead in a horror film” (55). Without stating it directly in the text of the book, McCarthy places specific language in the dialogue of the man and wife to show that their views on the end of the world are exponentially different.

As seen in the novel, the father and son journey southward on the road where the man constantly hides the reality of death from the boy. He assures him, “all the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. Just not on us.”(35) Through reassurance the man gives his son, he is aiming to comfort him and tell him that they will be okay. The boy says “I wish I was with my mom [dead]”...

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...ious terminology as well as vivid, yet minimalistic narrated descriptions.

The lack of punctuation and even names used throughout The Road augments and mirrors the simple, disorganized life and solitary conditions of the main characters’ journey. Through the use of the simple, unembellished statements and questions that make up the characters’ interaction and conversation, McCarthy gives the reader a clear sense of the undying tenderness and devotion that lives and grows between father and son in the face of impossible odds, without saying much of anything at all.

Works Cited

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage, 2006. Print.

Maslin, Janet. "The Road through Hell, Paved with Desperation." New York Times 26 September 2006, Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

Grindley, Carl James. “The Setting of McCarthy’s The Road.” The Explicator 67.1 (Fall 2008): 11-13. Print.