In this country, the age of the internal combustion engine has found its niche, states Jack Burden. And where cars go, roads must follow. Warren uses the exposition to describe a road in detail. Highway 58 has two components. Jack notes that the road has a slick, black line down the center and a dazzling concrete slab on both sides of the line. Because of the heat and light reflecting off the slab, only the black line is clear. Since the contrasting colors of the road are specified, the archetypes of the colors can be examined. The white of the slab is associated with purity, peace, and wholesomeness, while black of the line is associated with darkness, ignorance, and even death. Warren develops tension in the symbol of the road through the …show more content…
The importance of this tension is visible when instances of driving occur within the text. Consistently, road trips in the book are coupled with flashbacks or certain anti-chronological asides in which Jack or other characters are forced to confront their pasts or view the consequences of their past actions. The colors of the road affect the anti-chronological episodes in that they allow for a certain amount of tension to be revealed within the flashbacks themselves. The tension in the memories mirrors that of the road: the clash of ignorance and lifeless, unmoving death in the denial of the past with wholesomeness and peace in acceptance of the past is indicated in the memories and the flashbacks that Jack Burden has throughout the novel. Jack has to confront his past to escape ignorance and move into peace. In All the King’s Men, Warren uses the symbol of the concrete slab to indicate that before one progresses into the future, one must confront the …show more content…
The word choice in describing the black line on the road further indicates the connection. Warren says that the black line is black, slick, and tarry. When the novel was written, these were commonly used derogatory terms for African Americans. The author also uses a racial slur to describe the cotton chopper in the second image. Even the task the African American is doing, cutting cotton, is reminiscent of the work a slave would do. Warren is indicating that the black line on the road symbolizes African Americans and their history, specifically the history of racial prejudice and slavery. This racist symbolism is furthered through the dialogue of the African Americans and the repeated use of racial slurs. When the African Americans speak to each other, their dialogue is portrayed as uneducated. Warren establishes the racism in connection to the black line through slurs and stereotypes against African Americans. The symbolism of the slab in contrast, develops into the opposite. While the black line is the history and continuation of racial prejudice, the concrete slab on the road offers a different path. The concrete has been developed into a wholesome and peaceful path. In the examples provided of the drivers, one who focuses on the black line and crashes and one who wakes up and drives on the slab, the separate paths are presented explicitly. Either focus on the black line,
It has been three years since humanity was still alive. The year is 2020; very few people are left in America. A great series of large volcanic eruptions covered the region. No one could have prepared for them, and not one person predicted these tragedies. The author, Cormac McCarthy, shows the enticing travel of a father and his son. They must travel south for warmth, fight the starvation they are facing, and never let their guard down. They will never know what insane people might be lurking around the corner.
Since the beginning of the United States the American people have been on the move. Public transportation has played a major role in the development of this nation and in bringing its citizens together. In the book “Divided Highways”, author Tom Lewis takes the reader on a journey of the building of the Interstates and the consequences(good and bad) that came from them. Lewis believes that the Interstates are a physical characteristic of America and that it shows “all our glory and our meanness; all our vision and our shortsightedness”(xiv).
Chapter 18: Israel expresses his feeling about what the boat was named, and ask Paul for it to be changed to something better, because the boat name reminds him of imprisonment, which reminds Israel where he have been the last few times when he was captured by authorities. When thinking that he could not find a replacement of the name, he yelled out “Poor Richard”, and Paul agreed with it and stated that “In honor of him saying that ‘God helps them that help themselves,’ as Poor Richard says.” (Melville, 131) A while after, it was renamed Bon Homme Richard. They traveled near the Cheviot Hills, which is between England and Scotland. When arriving in Scotland, Israel was put in the Pisa of the Richard to watch out for any man that comes into Scotland. Israel explains that his adventure so far with John Paul Jones comes from
As the reader, I was deeply overwhelmed with many mixed emotions such as compassion, sadness, happiness, disgust, remorse, and fear. I have pity for the characters in the book The Road, because “the man” and “the boy” have to pass day to day struggling to survive in a frigid bleak world where food is scarce “They squatted in the road and ate rice and cold beans they’d cooked days ago.” “Already beginning to ferment.”(McCarthy 29). The landscape is blackened, and mankind is almost extinct “The mummied dead everywhere.”(McCarthy 24). As I read on I noticed myself connecting more deeply with the characters. When the boy’s mother takes her own life, I was deeply saddened and my heart broke for “the boy” simply because his mom, someone he cherished and loved so much, had given up on hope and faith and deserted him. I just wan...
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is an insightful towards the discussion what makes the human life meaningful. The entire story is set in a destructive world that is “barren, silence and godless” (McCarthy, 4). In such a world, survival has become the important task for human beings. The morality of human is naturally exposed to challenges of survival. There are two possibilities occurred in this desperate world: one is the collapse of human morality due to the survival pressure, and the other is the rediscovery of morality through overcoming difficulties. Through the depiction of the journey of a father and his son, McCarthy argues that although individuals know what it means to be good, the code of the good they find it challenging to be good people in such a harsh environment. In other words, not only survival of human beings depends on the environment,
In the novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the expressions, settings and the actions by various literary devices and the protagonist’s struggle to survive in the civilization full of darkness and inhumanity. The theme between a father and a son is appearing, giving both the characters the role of protagonist. Survival, hope, humanity, the power of the good and bad, the power of religion can be seen throughout the novel in different writing techniques. He symbolizes the end of the civilization or what the world had turned out to be as “The Cannibals”. The novel presents the readers with events that exemplify the events that make unexpected catastrophe so dangerous and violent. The novel reduces all human and natural life to the condition of savagery and temporary survival. McCarthy uses colour imagery to describe how grey, pale and miserable everything was. He uses “carrying the fire “which represents people who have a flame of humanity left alive in their hearts. The metaphor explains the readers about how most of the people were dishearten in the journey of horrid remnants of humanity. In the novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy elaborates not only the settings and the actions but also the love between a father and a son which is present even around the time of ultimate inhumanity and the stubborn desire to struggle to stay alive in the apocalyptic world and manipulate different writing techniques such as literary devices and characterization to explain the negative aspects of humanity.
By writing long lines then opposing them with short phrases, the writing is able to convey an adverse view, which is generally applied to black culture, onto the local more privileged community. She again employs plural point of view to demonstrate how, as a collective minority, “we often think of uptown”(5), referring to white society. The silent nights then described in line six refer to the apparent blandness of white culture when compared to the lively nature of the inner city. The long lines of 6 and 7 are then disrupted by line 8 in a very abrupt and jarring manner: “and the houses straight as” (7) “dead men” (8). This wording not only plays on the uniformity of White Culture, but addresses social divisions both past and present. The comparison of the white houses to dead men is a comparison of the insipid area that is uptown to the lively nature of the inner city and black life. A passed and darker meaning also rests on the shoulders of these dead men, as the houses that these wealthy whites inhabit have been built on the backs of African American’s since the countries origins. By applying these new and controversial images to both cultures, Clifton challenges societal conventions among both races in attempt to shift views concerning how black life is portrayed versus its
Cormac McCarthy creates a society where only the most savage of humans can thrive. This pushes humans to lose their sense of humanity and use any means necessary for survival. The boy in “The Road” goes against his society and never loses his sense of humanity.
Chapter 14 Segment 1: Art is everything that a person can create is an art. Possible music, dance and cooking. Everything that has to do with creativity means art. "When we talk about cultures or art in general, art does not have a place or a homeland. It is an art in general, which means that anyone who likes to hear any piece of music, whether Western, Arab or Asian, loves to hear it, it is not necessary that he understands the language or understands the tradition. Art is a sense, and as they say: Art has no homeland.
The first page of the book the road written by Cormac McCarthy used many narrative techniques. McCarthy wrote the novel in 3 rd person making it less bias, but more mysterious as nothing is revealed in the description of the 2 characters mentioned. The sentence structure is long and describing the location with no dialogue shown. The location was described, but no specifics, no names of the location all that was known is it is in the woods. Two characters are introduced, but not described one presumably a male adult and another a child. This technique McCarthy uses keeps the audience in extreme suspense as no information has been revealed and encourages the reader to keep reading if they want to know more.
Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, tells a story of a man and a boy in a world of cannibalistic humans. The man is on the road with the boy where people are eating each other in order to survive. The boy and the man keep their morality by being humane, not turning to cannibalism even when times are hard. In McCarthy’s novel, the physical and negative geographical surrounding affect and shapes the positive moral traits of the boy, which was a society lacked humanity.
The Road, a thrilling novel about a post-apocalyptic world, demonstrates a great understanding of the reasoning behind the choices humans make. While living a normal life with his wife and child, some unknown disaster occurs leaving the world in ruins and a father caring for his son by himself. He continues to raise his son, facing difficult decisions everyday, but inclusively decides to continue living. Also after discovering a bunker full of nonperishable foods, the father makes the tough decision to leave. Finally, the father choices to take a robber’s clothes; which presumably leads to the thief’s death. However, the son states his disagreement with his father’s choice leading to a change of heart. The incredibly difficult choices the father makes throughout the novel demonstrates his commitment to a strong relationship between him and his son.
It uses darker illustrative words compared to the first few lines of the poem. “Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends,” gives off an entirely different mood than the glee of the sidewalk. Being on the road is not as safe and more harm could occur. It takes more responsibility to handle the road, which is why it represents adulthood. Not all adults are happy with the big step from the sidewalk to the road, but the transition happens to everyone.
The language is also used to emphasize the feelings and emotions of Callum and Sephy. The use of descriptive writing is employed by Blackman to give the reader insight into the effects and emotions of racism. “I was talking like my mouth was full of stones – and sharp jagged ones at that.” The book is full of descriptive writing and figurative language with use of similes and metaphors to explore the feelings of Callum and Sephy. The way in which Blackman uses these language techniques influences the reader to especially pity the white race and the way they are treated in the book. Blackman has created her own world to resemble our own op...
Robert Frost, (born March 26, 1874, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died January 29, 1963, Boston, Massachusetts), American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, his command of American colloquial speech, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. Frost succeeded in lodging more than a few poems where, as he put it, they would be “hard to get rid of,” among them “The Road Not Taken” (published in 1915, with its meaning disputed ever since). He can be said to have lodged himself just as solidly in the affections of his fellow Americans. . A short outline of Robert Frost's poem on "The Road Not Taken" is literature that recounts a story about a traveler who communicates two roads in the woods. This extraordinary writing was composed during his mountain interlude. These two roads are not intertwined, however, that leads to two different directions and goals. Frost’s describes these roads as, "one street